


liminal

by ratpudz



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Biological Weapons, F/M, Flashbacks, Getting to Know Each Other, Government Experimentation, Hinata stans her, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mentions of Lady Gaga, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Depression, Sexual Content, Slow Build, Strangers to Lovers, a dog named Weenie because they wouldnt let Hinata name him Assmuncher, bang bang shooty zombie then bang bang on the floor!, have you seen kenma, kagehina/bokuaka + kuroo centric, no this isnt a crackfic no matter how weird the quotes i post are, other characters not mentioned in tags, really crude sense of humor, seriously take a shot for everytime i say fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 109,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22638631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratpudz/pseuds/ratpudz
Summary: During what‘s supposed to be the trip of his lifetime, Hinata discovers that some experiences are, well, simply better than others. On the day of his arrival, Tokyo suddenly becomes hell's brand new playground for biological warfare and serious violations of moral and human conduct; bombs fall, and creatures of many titles arise from them, leaving those who survive with no way in and no way out.Hinata's just lost the entire world to him, founded by a new group that took him in wounded and unconscious; debilitating injuries serve as a consequence of his actions, but Hinata made a promise long ago that he isn’t about to break- he needs to get back out there, as soon as he possibly can.Now, Hinata's always been sort of a "people person,” so establishing himself into a group isn’t his real problem-In fact, Hinata's only real problem is that the only person that can get him back out there is a total fucking dickhead.Faced with a city they're not familiar with and decisions neither of them want to make, Hinata finds himself paired up with a man who has the exact same impulse that he does: if you can run away from your guilt, shit, run until your heart stops beating. Do whatever it takes to survive.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Daishou Suguru/Yamaka Mika, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 98
Kudos: 145





	1. divide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello you, yes you. im not one of those authors that spams information in the notes, but please please PLEASE take the time to read these little bullets for your own safety !!! and thank you for reading this bitch of a fic, i appreciate it :)  
>   
> \- This bad boy is LONG, like MONSTER long. expect around 20k words per chapter and a lot of bad dick jokes. [edit: past the third chapter, most chapters have been slimmed down to around 10-15k, but there are definitely still exceptions]  
> \- There are plenty of heavy themes in liminal, but all are shed in a relevant and good lighting. i genuinely dont believe anyone could get seriously triggered by the way i represent any of this stuff because im the farthest from the “he has depression because he has depression guys im so edgy” type beat you can get, but just in case, this fic does imply: [Past Self-Harm, Past Alcoholism, Past/Current Depression, and PTSD, as well as heavy descriptions of gore]  
> \- The humor in here is definitely NOT for everyone and honestly I will not be offended if you dislike or disagree with the way I word things//characterize Hinata in this fic. You are by no means obliged to like my style nor agree with the things I say- especially in this first chapter; things go a little overboard at times. lmao.  
>   
> thats honestly about it, hope you guys enjoy <3

“ _That’s Skytree…?”_

“Yes, Shouyou. _That’s Skytree.”_

Even from his own outlook, Hinata’s always been considered special character. With his personality wedged between a rather odd rationale of humility and pride, it either took a snap of the fingers or the whole goddamn world to impress him, and he was conscious of that. No one could make Hinata more aware of himself than he already was. So, planted beneath one of Japan’s most distinguished attractions with his neck craned back to his shoulders and his eyes wide in observance, he comes to a prompt conclusion that Skytree is…

… _rather fuckin’ boring._

Now, don’t get me started; it’s not because the sight in itself isn’t grand by any means, but he knows he’d set his standards far too high for his rather sporadically unappreciative brain. Hinata imagines that seeing the tower at nighttime when it's all lit up and flashy and on the verge of giving him photosensitive epilepsy that it’d make the tower much more attractive to look at; and of course, he can’t deny experiencing the insides of the structure would definitely factor into things, but for whatever reason his first impression of the Tokyo Tower... he isn’t all that impressed. Maybe he’s just overstimulated- everything here is big and monochrome and flashy, maybe his brain was far too focused on flashy...

Or, perhaps, it’s because Hinata takes the time to pick out the little things now. Well, little-r things, also known as nitpicking- or _bitching,_ if you want to get real technical. Sometimes, Hinata was compulsive enough to get pissy over the grass wedged between the cracks of a sidewalk; meanwhile, the heaps and mounds of dirty laundry situated in the corners of his room contributed nothing to the plaguing of his mood. It wasn’t as if Hinata were suffering from any form of OCD, no no, he just had a simple pleasure for visual aesthetics- and a low tolerance for when they were so much as acutely out of line. Ones that didn’t apply to his bedroom, of course, or anything that he may have had a part in. Mental illness, am I right? The guy’s temperament was strung tightly around the way he thought things should be, whether they be fact or opinion.

And then there was the guy next to him; _Kenma._ The one Hinata knew had an eye for visual aesthetics but like damn if he cared for them, like damn if he cared for anything _at all._

Kenma is Hinata’s best friend, has been since they first met in high school and will be to the grave; Hinata loved this guy to _death_. The pair first met when Hinata was a mere first year and Kenma was in his second. Their very first interaction was Hinata flat out telling him that whenever someone spoke to him, the guy looked as if he were a deer in headlights, as if he fretted being displaced. And of course, Hinata, being the annoying extraverted prick he was, set the goal of becoming Kenma’s friend _immediately,_ _passionately_. It was this dragging start, from a flighty first year’s attempts to connect with a nearly socially inept second year, that created a friendship that now stood unbreakable- an otherwise unlikely pair, separated by mindsets and personality... They bickered a lot, and if you wouldn’t have known better, you would’ve seen their relationship as impractical.

Hands in his pockets and gazing at nothing in particular, even in the midst of the metropolitan that was Tokyo, those lidded brown eyes of Kenma’s seemed nothing astray from their usual. Strands of hair dangling in his face with the gray sky above him, accompanied by the bitter air and made the guy’s arms seek refuge pinned up against his sides… he seemed unfazed, and _that bothered Hinata._ Hinata had expected to see a difference in Kenma when returning to this place. What kind, he wasn't sure, but… _‘this is Kenma’s home, after all.’_

Contrasting to their little hometown in the Miyagi prefecture, this place felt like a goddamn _hurricane_. Coming from a settlement that looked more like a village than a town, diving straight into one of the biggest cities in the world was a damn lot to get used to; but even with all this new noise, all this change- Kenma seems utterly unfazed by all the movement that swarms him. Kenma hasn’t been to Tokyo in _years,_ and yet not a single emotion sparks. Guess it made a difference living here, once upon a time- _but didn’t the guy feel a difference?_ Did these streets hold sentimentality, or was it all lost to time under Kenma’s nonchalant and shallow nature?? Good fuck, maybe Kenma’s having the time of his life beneath that standard, npc looking stare of his- who knew, truthfully. And, really, not like Hinata could hold that tired gaze against him- he’s sure after the day the two have had so far, _anyone_ would be a little out of it. _‘Wonder if he’s even breathing,’_ Hinata would think. “Are you doing alright, there?” Kenma just shrugs. “Yeah.” Didn’t seem like it.

It’s late March, the 26th to be exact but not like anyone gave a damn minus Hinata and Kenma themselves; this week had been set on their calendars for longer than they could remember. It’s been an unusually harsh winter, but not particularly surprising for the bipolar climate of eastern Japan- temperatures that averaged just below freezing were still common, evidence of winter’s tight grip on the spring weather. The two young men had brought themselves to Tokyo as a mere week-long vacation, saving up their hard-earned cash for well over a year and strategically marking down the days to when the two of them would both be free of expenses and jobs and schooling. With the two of their lousy incomes put together and just a little bit of mommy’s free charity, the two had managed to pull out a good deal out in a decently fancy hotel suite- yeah, a couple of dumb, broke guys in a hotel in Tokyo for a fucking week.

Scratch that, two guys and a sixteen year old girl who bitched and whined to come with them just to want to hang back at the hotel after they got here. _“You sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?”_ Hinata had asked Natsu, to which she rolled her eyes over, already spread out on the bed of their hotel room. “As long as mom never finds out.” That had been Hinata’s seller; their mother was reluctant enough allowing her idiotic, young adult brother take her _anywhere_ unsupervised- Hinata’s sure that if Kenma weren’t here, she wouldn’t have allowed it at all.

Anyways, assuming that his younger sister _didn’t_ ask for any unattainable souvenirs as she always did, this trip in itself wasn’t anything they couldn’t necessarily pay off, but it would be a good few months before they could even _think_ about eating out again. Neither of them were about to have a single leisure cent left in their accounts when they got home. But, Hinata had insisted, and he’s far worse off than Kenma, so… _what the hell, right...?_ A week of feeling rich and carefree and then it’s back to hitting the cup noodles. But hey- that’s a whole week of being stress-free that Kenma wouldn’t have gotten without his obnoxious sidekick. Had to give him credit for that.

But, as imaginable, their first day wasn’t going quite as smoothly as one would dream of; the drive from their hometown to Tokyo alone was around four hours long, and on top of that they’d gotten stuck in traffic. Not as if said jam was longer than twenty minutes or so, but Kenma, Hinata’s found, was the furthest thing from patient when he’s woken up at seven in the morning just to drive. The entire time he just complained at a high volume about the woman in front of him- meanwhile, Hinata would purposely make things worse from the passenger’s seat by loudly biting into a hot cheeto but only when Kenma would start whining, waiting to see how long it took the guy to notice. All up until Natsu knocked his shit in with a pillow, anyways. He’s certain that on multiple occasions, if the two weren’t bound at the hip and shoulder, Hinata would’ve gotten his _head popped off-_ or, a flick to the temple at least- but to Kenma’s misfortune, Hinata‘s a risk-taker, and watching the blonde ignite into any sort of emotion was to his amusement. Besides, it was payback for all the times the guy had shut off the stereo during Hinata’s aggressive carpool karaoke sessions. Fucker.

“So…” Kenma’s blatantly unenthusiastic voice makes Hinata wilt somewhere inside, “do you wanna go there _now…?”_

Hinata, through his wincing, hesitates. “I kind of want to visit it at night,” he suggests, watching curiously as Kenma’s face did nothing more than acknowledge this, “will it still be open...?”

“Around evening, it will,” Kenma says with a nod, “can’t guarantee it’ll be any less busy, though…”

 _“Hey-”_ Hinata swats at his shoulder, getting the guy to jostle, “can you at least look a _little bit excited?_ Like- _at all??”_

Kenma just shrugs. _“We’re not doing anything fun yet.”_

And in it came, the line that divided the two of them. The pair begins hiking off in the opposite direction of Skytree as Hinata explodes. “For fucks sake, Kenma- _that doesn’t matter,”_ he whines, throwing his arms out a bit but not so wide as to hit someone, “we’re in a brand new place, brand new location- I held off on getting a new _phone_ for this trip. How’re you not excited _at all??”_

Kenma’s always been like _this_ , and how the guy could live with it- we’ll just say Hinata knew he couldn’t. Kenma was an introvert that took social interaction to the bare minimum, so much so that conversation itself would exhaust him. The best way Hinata’s found to put it was that Kenma wasn’t exactly the type to start shaking whilst ordering a damn McChicken, but wasn’t about to head back for any extra sauces, either- the embodiment of what instagram girls that called themselves feral were. Yeah, I’m talking to you. Stop saying you’re a fucking crackhead because you impulsively dyed your hair at three in the morning over a mental breakdown, you still choke up asking your mommy if you can get a packet of gum while you’re at the Walmart checkout. Kenma’s reluctant tendencies buried themselves in a borderline between social anxiety and sheer laziness and it took Hinata the longest time to even come to terms with the fact that Kenma was just built differently than the redhead was. Because whereas Hinata’s response to Kenma’s problems was “you need to get out more”, Kenma’s response was…

 _“You need to learn to take things slow, dammit.”_ The blonde guy bunches himself up like a hermit as the wind buffets his hoodie, “need to learn to savor and not wolf down your experience. I’m already proud of you for not going balls first into the Tokyo Tower.”

Hinata just scoffs, a playful mood still seeping through their relatively serious conversation what with the number of times they’ve already been over this same subject. _“Okay, wise guy._ Ever considered that’s _exactly what I’m doing_ but actually making it enjoyable by having a not-so piss poor mood? If anything, I’m proud of _you_ for actually following through on our efforts to come out here.”

“I’m not in a piss poor mood, I’m just conserving energy so I’m not tired at eight pm like you will be. These are important life lessons I’m teaching you, Shou-kun.”

 _“Life lessons? Are-_ says the one who actually got offers to like- some _private college_ and still comes close to flunking out of classes you find boring. All because you sit on your fucking Nintendo all day long.”

Kenma stares down at his feet as Hinata mimics the controller scheme with his thumbs before Kenma raises his voice. _“Exactly_. ‘S what I’ve been doing all my life and you’ve witnessed it; I know what I’m doing with myself, Shouyou, and you’re almost twenty two years old and no closer to getting out of your mama’s basement. Nintendo has evolved into a way of life.”

Hinata’s short burst of laughter echoes just faintly above the surrounding conversations. “Jesus, get a _girlfriend.”_

“Not until you keep a boyfriend,” Kenma shoots back, and Hinata’s eyes widen. But, he’s not genuinely hurt by Kenma’s remark, effeminately placing his hand on his chest and mocking shock; “Kenma, you’ve met all of my previous boyfriends- every last one of them has either fucked me up or had a personality reminiscent to that of a fucking _adidas sandal._ I know you’ve never been as into the chase as I am, but I can assure you that after so many relationships it becomes pretty obvious to tell when a guy is here for _you_ or when a guy is here to _have a good fifteen minutes of silent missionary sex and then brag about all the ass they’re getting to their female friends that’re just sexualizing the whole ordeal.”_ Hinata gesticulates aggressively, having no concern for the volume of his voice, “‘s already hard enough to find another gay dude that’s actively looking for a relationship within driving distance, of course to slim it down _even further_ to gay dudes that are actually _my type_ or at the very least _not_ ugly as hell and _don’t_ have adidas sandal personalities, and to slim it down _eeeeeven further_ to gay dudes that are actually after a relationship and _not_ just my million dollar blowjobs. So, Kenma, when you find a decent looking, romantic guy who’s into other men and thinks that a broke, five foot seven redhead that lives with his mommy at the age of twenty one is sexy, _call me._ Daddy kink is preferred, but not mandatory. And don’t forget to mention that I look and sound like a girl.”

The blonde just snickers at all this. _“Whatever, Shouyou,”_ he says, “at least you _have_ the looks and personality and the motivation to be able to actually obtain a boyfriend. I don’t think I’ve even made conversation with an attractive guy _or even a girl_ since like- _my third year of high school;_ not a whole lot of smokers in computer science classes. But, you- you’re a guy with a feminine appearance, you’re like a majority of every bisexual’s dreams, right? Some thin, feminine guy with curly hair. Double whammy.”

 _“Yeah-_ as twitter would say, being skinny is all fun and games until I fly out the window like a McDonald’s napkin.” Hinata wraps his fingers around his slender wrists in demonstration and Kenma does it right back, _“don’t act like I’m any heavier.”_

Hinata laughs as Kenma continues on. “Point stated, McDonald’s napkin or not, you’re still attractive. Sexy napkin.”

“To some people’s standards, maybe,” Hinata grumbles. “I’m mostly just the main source of prey to heterosexual females that love gay men but think lesbians are gross. And the ones that draw their original characters as some robust, hyper-fetish guy and the other as a flamboyantly gay twink wearing a daddy’s little monster croptop. God fucking forbid a boy weigh a hundred and thirty pounds and not be a bottom.”

“Okay, yeah, but fuck them,” says Kenma, “the entire planet is like- _obsessed_ with gay bottom boys.”  
“Not the entire world,“ says Hinata, “just the weirdos on tumblr who reduce all bottoms’ personalities to cum dumpsters and girls who want gay best friends to treat like objects. And pedophiles, the holy trinity. The rest of the world is homophobic- and, quite frankly, with the amount of twelve year olds defining their gender as spaceflux and are convinced they have astral wings, I’d be homophobic too.”

“Damn,” Kenma blinks. “Got anyone else to degrade while you’re going off on a tangent…?”

“You know people are going to be upset over this sense of humor, right? That you’re going to get spammed with _“haha, it’s funny because he’s gay guys laugh please laugh”_ comments, right?? People don’t like it when gay people are anything outside of their perfect clean cut representation, because all gay people act the exact same and all gay people are created equal and all of us are here for representation and all of us are in the exact same scenario. How dare I, a male, talk about the genitalia of another male, god forbid the fact that I talk about men in any way beyond romantic a sense because that’s sterotyping predatory behavior and I am suddenly extremely toxic for being open about the fact that I have a sex drive. How dare I even _mention_ the fact that the lgbt community is just creating a loophole for itself in the way it demands to be represented by the media by having every last lgbt character be pure or nerdy or uwu and that that trope itself now is becoming a stereotype, that we can’t have badass or problematic characters be gay solely because once a character is gay it magically becomes their only personality trait and it becomes the reasoning as to why they’re a bad person even when there are very obviously no direct correlations.”

“This entire conversation just sounds like you’re writing a book in the form of a callout post.”

“You know what, maybe I should write a book; I’ll call it: _The Great Wit of People with Common Fucking Sense._ Or liminal, one of the two. God- can we just get back to the significant other talk, _please???”_

The blonde just casts him a sideways glance before snorting. _“Fine, then._ I know you’ve had shit boyfriends and girlfriends in the past, but really, you tend to just- _dive into one relationship after the other without fear of consequences._ And, when it magically doesn’t work out, you act all offended and get super worked up about it just to not care a week later and repeat the process.”

Hinata’s relaxed eyebrows quickly come to raise at this and he meets Kenma’s eyes just to find him already staring back. Never does Kenma have the most expressional face, but Hinata’s known the guy for so long now that he’s adapted to the acute differences in Kenma’s appearance. And right now, the stoic face that everyone else saw was far from neutral, cloaking an undertone of both seriousness and smugness at his own words. “You need to _relax, man.”_

The second chain of differences between them come flooding in. “ _Hey, now-“_

Without a doubt, Kenma could go the entire day just sitting alone in his room without so much as a message from his parents so long as he was occupied; solitude was the first place Kenma recluded to when he was upset. For his best friend, being alone was his pleasure, a space where Kenma could retreat to clear his mind and conclude his own problems. As for Hinata, the same solitude that Kenma needed so badly was the very thing that would _destroy him,_ thoughts easily becoming louder and more frantic; the redhead needed people like he needed the blood in his veins. Even when Hinata wasn’t out and about with someone, he always had his phone to his ear and someone on the other line, contacts ranging from as much as old high school buddies to random voicechats he’d jump into on various different social platforms to even Natsu when the time called for it. Half the time, the thought of not being in a relationship downright _scared_ Hinata.

Of course, there were advantages and disadvantages to both of the two’s mindsets- even more personality stemming from those influences. One of the first things that would come to mind when thinking of Hinata was that on a grander scale he wasn't afraid to speak his mind. _Certainly_ not afraid to go against people’s judgment if it’s what he found right. It’s just how the guy was; an independent mind that kind of craved all sorts of social interaction. Meanwhile, Kenma on the other hand, sought to see both sides of the story, trying to stay a centrist and agree to the wrongs and rights of both party’s sides. However, Hinata couldn’t exactly be described as hotheaded either; nor could Kenma be described as empathetic. The redhead wasn’t known for his brashness and instead was typically quite rational, sweet; he used what he could comprehend both mentally and physically to set up his line of defense. Hinata was an emotional character that found disbelief as a personal offense. If anything, the closest definition to describe Hinata Shouyou would be hotblooded. And this hotblooded-ness- it was a trait that Kenma admired very, very deeply, but never in a million years could he imagine himself possessing. Yes, Kenma admired the way Hinata spoke his mind because it was something he could not do, a wish that branched from envy, as the blonde’s relatively submissive nature would not allow for it...

Yet, at the same time, Hinata revered in the way Kenma had ultimate control over his feelings, how he wouldn’t act on impulse and ruin his life in fifteen minutes where the frustration could’ve melted away. Mutual respect had developed between them and their differences, and it’s what Hinata personally believed made them act as a whole; for what one lacked, the other made up for. Even if it _did_ evoke the occasional argument.

 _‘You need to relax.’_ A truthful statement that Hinata didn’t want to hear.

After a few seconds, Hinata shoots back. “Relax and _what?”_ The guy strains to preserve the playful tone in his voice, even though he can feel frustration beginning to boil beneath his tongue, “find some motherfucker that’s going to take me to the ball, give me the _glass_ adidas sandal...?”

“All I’m saying is that maybe it’s not going to end up being the one you met through a dating app or an instagram dm, _you know?”_ The crowd gets thicker but Kenma’s voice doesn’t shrink; Hinata’s got his focus locked on his words and couldn’t shut it out if he tried. “Especially because you take it so hard when people break off from you in general; I just think you devote too much time into the wrong crowd is all. Guy or girl, I could see you hooking up _much easier_ with someone you knew from high school or, like- another employee at work or something...”

Hinata just shrugs, Kenma’s prior words still digging beneath his skin. _“What does it matter?_ They’re just missing out on all… _this_.”

The redhead gestures to himself as a whole, making fun of his own self-image and Kenma snorts this sweet, ingenuine little laugh. “Hell yeah they are. But, I mean hey- I’m just here to give you life advice, not control how you do it. If you find contentment in having a monthly body count of seven, that doesn’t affect me-“

“Good god, you make me out to be _a_ _whore,”_ scoffs Hinata, “it’s more like… _six.”_

“Maybe five on a good month.”

Hinata laughs at this, unwilling to state just how incorrect that statement was of lately; Hinata told Kenma just about everything down to when he needed to fucking piss, but with Kenma stuck in a university hours away from home, the redhead couldn’t deny that their relationship had reshaped itself to mold around their physical distance. Kenma didn’t know absolutely everything about him anymore. He kind of missed that.

Hinata jabs an elbow. “Let’s go get something to eat then, yeah? I’m starving-”

Kenma just yawns. “Like _where?”_ He asks, fanning the front of his mouth, “ _McDonalds?”_

“Nah. I’m feeling something sweeter, more authentic. Maybe a little coffee shop or something.”

“ _Fine by me._ I know whatever I won’t eat you will.” Damn right he would.

And so, they venture through crowded sidewalks and passing conversation. While he takes it all in, Hinata wonders what it would be like to grow up in a place like this, in a place like Tokyo; yeah yeah, go off about opportunity and all, but did city dwellers _truly realize_ just what they were missing out on? With all these people on the streets, no room to even spread their arms out wide- did people even actually live here? Didn’t feel like it. Skyscrapers and complex buildings had their tops obscured by the heavens, and the buildings that looked habitable also looked like they cost a lung and a foot just to own. Everything felt as if they were just pieces of Tokyo’s elegant puzzle, serving no purpose other than to catch your eye with their energetic, metropolitan glamor. Just how ghostly would this place look if all the lights and noise suddenly went out…?

Kenma points a finger. _“There?”_

Hinata purses his lips under a hasty evaluation. “Nah, _more exotic.”_ His third denial already.

Hinata thinks this place is a phenomenal sight, not a phenomenal place to live in. It’s all just one big tour; the mere thought of being unable to return to his small hometown in Miyagi pained the guy. He’d much rather reside in his hometown, where jaywalking was a regular occurrence and no one was bothered by it, or bike rides down the hill wound you up in central square, where you’d end up purchasing fresh fruit from the same old farmer you’d seen in that same old market stall countless times. The smell of freshly trimmed lawns and only the sound being that of wind and children laughing, that’s what Hinata loved, whereas Tokyo just smelled… _populated_. The air all thick and not particularly scentless but unidentifiable...

He likes it here, but it overstimulated him. At least _this part of town did._ But, they’d just got here. Hinata can’t speak for the entirety of Tokyo because half of their luggage was still piled in the backseat of their fucking car.

“Are you going to pick somewhere, or do we have to play eeny meeny miny moe?”

It takes Hinata a good second to let Kenma’s words register, but when they do, a grin settles on the guy’s face, prideful in just how aggravating he could be. “Sheesh, can’t a guy be indecisive...?”

“It’d be one thing if you were actually looking and not gawking off at the same goddamn sky you see every day,” mutters Kenma, hunching even further info a ball, “plus its fucking _cold.”_ Nothing about him had changed, really.

“It’s not _that bad,_ you just never get outside,” jibes Hinata, to which he gets the finger for but not a verbal response. _“Fine,”_ laughs Hinata, “let’s just go _there.”_

His pointer lands on a little coffee shop wedged unevenly between buildings that doubled it in size, a humble little gray banner reading something in english that Hinata couldn’t bother to decipher. Looked cute, looked busy- but what _didn’t_ look busy in Tokyo?

More than happy to oblige, Kenma immediately begins weaving through the busy streets, and Hinata laughs as he trails him.

_Hinata really loved Kenma._

He may have liked the guy a time or two, hard to tell because their relationship had already been so close. Kenma was the guy that first helped Hinata acknowledge his sexuality, even educated him a time or two on gay sex; rather the ins and outs of it, if you know what I’m saying. And god bless him for that, because sex with a girl sometimes felt like _diet sex_ for Hinata, it fucking _sucked._ Coming to accept himself for who he was during high school had been hard, even harder with his mother’s openly mixed feelings about the situation- it took her a long time to fully understand how Hinata felt. Not that she’d ever been unsupportive, but unsure- like she was afraid she’d mess up or something by treating his boyfriends like human beings. Natsu hadn’t really been old enough to understand back then, but she seemed to find enjoyment in annoying the shit out of Hinata and his lovers. Come to think of it, not much had changed with his sister.

But, his small family had always adored Kenma, such a bland face in the midst of Hinata’s other fiery high schooler friends. Ironically enough, the pair that mixed like oil and water ended up without fallout; a genuine fight was next to unbeknownst in their friendship.

Hinata and Kenma both had changed a lot since high school, though. Maybe it was the exposure to good friends but bad influences, of drugs and sex and yada yada, all the other stereotypical stuff that high schoolers did, that corrupted their respectively pure mindsets. Hinata wants to argue that he’d gotten even _less_ mature, at least when the time called for it, anyways. But, something had changed for Hinata upon discovering his sexuality, lots of heartbreak and disorders and promises.

Hinata scratches faintly at the jet black ink beneath the sleeve of his jacket, though it doesn’t actually itch. It just serves as his reminder.

The scent of chocolate rich and sweet hits Hinata within the first step taken into the shop, the furnace kicked onto high and providing a warm welcome along with the accompaniment of civilian chatter. Kenma echoes his thoughts out loud with a quiet “ _damn, that smells good,”_ unzipping his jacket and Hinata does the same. He takes it off and wraps the arms around his waist as he takes it all in; it's very clean, very full- lots of chatter but not the clamorous kind like you’d hear at bars. The whole place has a nice aesthetic to it, actually- a good clash between dark and light and filled with many kinds of living plants and mosaic paintings. And good god, whatever they had cooking up back there smelled _heavenly-_

“I hope their coffee actually tastes like coffee,” says Hinata, “like straight bean water, that’s the good stuff.”

“You’re gross,” mutters Kenma, pulling out his wallet and checking the loose change at least seven paces back in line, “I bet you could drink just straight black coffee if you wanted to.”

“Not sure about that; I’m a creamer-type guy.”

“Please never say that in public ever again.”

Hinata’s eyebrows furrow while Kenma takes out his phone. He’s rather quick to begin complaining, “damn, _no signal?”_ His face seems to contort and Hinata frowns, confused as well. “In the middle of _Tokyo??”_

“Guess so,” mumbles Kenma, completely lost without being on his phone for longer than five minutes, “maybe I’ve used too much data already...” Hinata pulls out his own phone, finding beyond the lockscreen that he, too, had no service. _“Huh,”_ he says, taking a leisurely pace or two backward. “Natsu better not decide to up and get herself killed any time soon, then-“

And that’s when a sudden body crashes into his side, to which Hinata would’ve gotten angry over if he wouldn’t have caught the yelp of surprise coming from a female voice. On instinct, his hand lunges out, snagging her by the arm and saving her from a rough descent; it's a barista, waitress, who’s lucky she didn’t have anything in her hands when she slammed into him. The lady is already spewing apologies, though, which overwhelms Hinata to the point where he let’s go when she bows slightly, “it’s- y-you’re fine-“

She looked to be around his age- short, maybe not exactly Hinata’s type but undeniably cute. After a few more excessive apologies, she seems to go to turn away, embarrassed, only to have something catch her eye first. “I- I like your tattoo.”

Hinata’s relatively sure by the way the girl strings her hair behind her ear that it’s either a form of flirtation or an attempt to relieve the situation from its subject. The redhead scratches at it at the mentioning, the long, black feather tattoo inked into the underside of his forearm, reaching nearly from wrist to inner elbow. _“Thanks,”_ he responds, pointing a thumb at Kenma, “my friend and I- we match, got em not too long ago, actually.”

 _“Really?”_ She asks, taking a glance at Kenma, who seemed extremely disinterested in the whole ordeal, still playing with settings on his phone; “I’m- getting one myself soon, does it hurt??”

“I mean, I’m no tattoo expert, but it really depends on where you’re getting it.” He eases quickly into conversation, “In my case, it didn’t hurt so much…”

And then things progress into even stranger territory as all the lights inside the place flicker out, coffee machines going still as people’s heads tilt to look upwards. The place is lined with windows, so it doesn’t go pitch black, but it gets noticeably much darker as Hinata watches the lights in the buildings surrounding go pitch black as well. The cafe goes eerily quiet until hushed, confused whispers erupt again, Hinata turning back to Kenma; _“power outage??”_

Kenma’s lips purse, rubbing at one eye. “Can’t imagine it’s much of Tokyo, though,” says Kenma, “place is so big, there’s gotta be electrical outlets everywhere...”

But when the pair realizes upon further examination that not a single light can be seen along the streets and people beginning to wander outside to examine the phenomenon, their concern only continues to grow. _“Hey, lady.”_ Kenma redirects the barista’s attention, “Is this _supposed_ to be happening? Like, was there some public service announcement the power was going out for some reason??”

The lady just shakes her head, “n-not that I’m aware of- though I’m not usually the most caught up on politics,” she says, and Hinata looks back. _“Why do you ask that...?”_

Kenma just shrugs. “Dunno. I just think it’s weird that the service went out a minute or two before the power did. If anything, they should’ve gone out together- now we can’t even check our phones to see when the lights will be back up again.”

The more Kenma speaks, the more Hinata frowns. Kenma eventually begins waddling away with his phone in his hand, getting Hinata to frown; _“what’re you doing??”_

“Trying to get a signal literally anywhere in this damn cafe.” He suddenly latches onto Hinata’s arm, saying lowly into his ear: “something’s wrong, Shou.”

 _“Wrong?”_ He repeats, immediately fretting, “what the hell do you mean by _that?”_ Kenma wouldn’t just scare him like that.

“I dunno, I just… I feel like this is a sequence of events that isn’t entirely over.” The two shuffle closer to the back of the room, and Hinata snorts. _“Seriously?_ You’re that worked up about all this???”

Hinata’s frayed nerves ease as Kenma waddles with concentration in his gaze; he ignores Hinata. “Good god, it’s a _coincidence_ , Kenma. Believe it or not, these things happen- I swear, your brain gets so easily hooked on the idea that we’re living in a video game or something-“

And that’s when the floor erupts into mild tremors as the sound of something loud hits their eardrums, something exploding- the pair latches onto each other in immediate shock, nearly collapsing along with the screams of terror that wailed from the pedestrians.

Kenma’s voice is shaky. _“What the fuck?!“_

“Was that a bomb??!”

“It hit Skytree!”

Hinata and Kenma regain their stances to see people piling up at the windows, blocking out whatever the fuck had just happened, but their words and the faint screaming from outside said plenty. _“What the fuck??!!”_

Kenma looks around as dust gently falls from the ceiling, taking a pace or two backward while Hinata still clings to him, “what the _fuck_ was _that???”_

“I don’t-“ Kenma looks around, blinking until the sudden sound of sharp whistling can be heard, of something breaking the sound barrier-

 _“Jets,”_ Kenma says upon recognition, and the two just stare at one another until someone else cries out: “are we under attack??!!”

They _can’t_ be under attack. Japan wasn’t involved in any war, Japan wasn’t _ever_ involved in a war- why the hell would _anyone_ want to harm Japan out of _thin air??_ But, if that wasn’t the case, what were jets doing flying low over the rooftops of Tokyo...? What were these claims of Skytree being on fire, of these strange coincidental happenings almost too perfect for a raid set up...

One thing’s for sure, though. _Hinata believes Kenma now._

“Holy shit, _Kenma,”_ he can feel himself beginning to shake, not even able to see what was going on, “Skytree-”

“We were _just there.”_

Kenma doesn’t respond in the slightest, showing no outward signs that he was afraid but deep down, Hinata could see it. Something a little more than anxiety, something like _terror._

A paradox, they were in. This doesn’t happen in real life, at least _not here._ Not to them. Not to Japan. None of this could be real, at least that’s what Hinata thinks. His mind was already putting up some weary walls to protect their fragile hopes and beliefs. _“They blew up Skytree.”_

Tears well into the corners of Hinata’s eyes, afraid he was about to drop dead for no reason, “what the hell; I’m so scared, Kenma.” And yet his voice sounded calm, eerily calm for the situation he was in. _“We were just there…”_

“... Oh _fuck!!“_

The two get to see the men and women at the windows suddenly begin to disperse, terrified, before the world suddenly flashes a horrible white, bringing in its wake a black wave of unconsciousness of the likes of which they’d ever experienced before.

Dazed and paralyzed, Hinata wakes up to foul scents and an entire body’s worth of pain. He groans, shifting his arm just to ensure he was alive only to have it erupt into discomfort, feeling a combination of stinging on his skin and aching in his muscles. He doesn’t realize it until it begins to settle in but he can’t see, nor does anything cross his ears but a faint ringing, pain building behind the pressure. The guy can tell he’s bleeding, isn’t sure where but it feels like everywhere, a roaring pain that coaxed him into unconsciousness. But the more awake he became, the more he began to remember, the more he began to feel. A headache splits for a quick second and then fades into bluntness as Hinata’s eyes open all the way, the ringing fading just enough for the guy to begin hearing a muffled variant of screaming, people screaming. It disturbs him, fear beginning to rouse in the form of anxiety deep within the pit of his stomach as the indistinguishable lights and darks begin to turn into shapes and colors, colors of red.

_What the fuck had just happened?_

Hinata places a hand to the ground, trying to get up but it turns into an immediate struggle as pain shoots into his palms. He lets out a constricted grunt in replacement for a scream, finding glass shards and wooden splinters wedged shallowly into his skin. He plucks them out one by one, the ones he can see, anyways, panting by the time it was all over and realizing they coated his entire body. He’s lucky that his clothing choice had been relatively thick because otherwise, he’s sure he’d have a lot more to worry about than splinters in his hands. He’s never felt this much pain in his life. Whatever had knocked him to the floor had done it well.

Hinata feels wet on the sides, quickly coming to realize it was blood as he pressed a hand to it and it came back red. And at this realization he heaves, unsettled as his suspicions get confirmed- whatever the hell had happened had been _bad._

If it were up to him, Hinata would have completely collapsed by now. _Given up._ But some disturbing force, an intense, emotional focus, was overriding _everything_. Overriding everything in his line of vision, which was black and doubling, the fact that he couldn’t even hear his own thoughts over that horrible ringing sound, the fact that he suddenly ached and itched all fucking over...

 _Kenma_. Where the hell was _Kenma...?_

A sudden burst of energy courses through Hinata’s body, shoving himself onto his knees with far too much haste for his body to handle- the moment he rears upright his senses recoil, reminding him of his state with a piercing throb of the head and Hinata cries out against it. But it doesn’t take him long to regain, eyes blinking rapidly in a strained attempt to focus. _‘Kenma,’_ his mind would scream louder than its pounding, watching his gray distortion dissolve away, _‘where is…’_

A body catches his sights, so quickly nothing else even registers. Blonde hair stained a deep red, how long had they been out for? It couldn’t have been too long, a handful of seconds… maybe a handful of minutes, but panic still flurries outside... _Maybe that didn’t say much._

Kenma’s body was still. Not stiff, but limp, body contorted into a smallish ball; Hinata couldn’t even see his face but dread consumed him, an instant realization before it even processed properly. Weakly, his throat manages to muster: “Kenma…”

Terror overrides him when the other man doesn’t respond. _“Kenma!”_ Hinata shrieks, just loud enough to be heard above that dull ring in his ears.

He scrambles over on his hands and knees, collapsing twice and practically throwing himself down over the top of the guy. With the sounds of glass and wood hitting the floor, Hinata’s hands cup at the side of Kenma’s torso as he rolls him onto his side and into his lap. Kenma’s head lolls and immediately Hinata sees it, the man’s eyes closed in a relaxed position while his forehead swelled up and oozed blood from a mark where he must’ve been struck by something. Hinata’s fingers begin twitching as his eyes rapidly flit all along Kenma’s limp weight, fear building in his lungs and squeezing his throat; _“no way,”_ he cries weakly. So much blood that it dyed his blonde hair red, stringy and wet, plastered it to his scalp...

What the hell happened???

 _‘He’s dead, he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead.’_ Hinata’s head dips down, listening for a heartbeat, breathing- _anything_. Now probably would’ve been a good time to know how exactly to check one’s pulse, but goddamn if he’d been paying attention to that. But, thankfully, Hinata gets results rather quickly; relief hits the redhead so strongly it bribes a shudder from within him as he detects the faintest signs of stirring from Kenma’s heart and lungs, signifying that deep down, he was _alive_. “Oh my god,” Hinata whispers, this time in a joyous manner, a frenzied smile spreading across his face, Kenma was alive. Not a day in his life had Hinata thought he’d be having to check for that. _“Oh my god-“_

Hinata is pulled from his trance when the world suddenly tremors again, along with the earsplitting roar of the jets; he instinctively flings himself over the top of Kenma as decore falls and shatters around him. Somewhere, deep down in his conscience, he recognizes the situation they’re in; _bombs_. The jets are still dropping bombs, dropping _more_ bombs. More than just a terrorist strike.

But didn’t this shit only happen in movies and games, in distant world affairs…? How the hell could this be happening _here_ , to _him_. Hinata knows very well that it’s all real, but his brain tries to make sense of it by motioning it’s all fake. In a pool of blood and holding his best friend, Hinata sits between a space of panic and augmented reality. The guy drags his hands through his hair, moving without a conscious, smearing orange locks with a deep red and the scent gets infinitely stronger, causing him to gag and choke while he whines once again: _“Kenma.”_ Probably the only thing he can make sense of at the moment; he has no other words.

And the second his head turns to heave, he makes direct eye contact with the waitress he’d been flirting with just seconds ago. Hinata’s pupils contract further, coming to see her head split into two pieces somewhere off-centered, brains spilling out where her cheekbones once were and a detached, partially-deflated eyeball staring directly back at him, absorbing the blood it laid in. Broken from his trance only by the instincts that follow, Hinata throws up with his eyes wide, a lightheaded feeling stirring in his veins by the time he whips his head back around to Kenma’s bloodied body, finding it infinitely less disturbing to focus on. That image wouldn’t leave his head, though, knowing that he could glance over the shoulder and see it once again. Twice now, he retches, lips dripping with thick, foul-tasting saliva.

Oh god. Oh god, oh god.

Scratch all he’d said before, this was far worse than the movies. Because, as he realized by the blood not that of Kenma’s but of many others, this was completely _real_. This was actually happening. He could smell it, he could feel it, and most certainly could he see it.

All he could make sense of at this point was what would remain determined in his life from this point forward: _this was a brand new hell._

He had to get out of here. Get _them_ out of here.

“Don’t worry Kenma,” Hinata whispers as if he could hear, “I’ll get you out of here. _I’ll fix you, damn it.”_ Hinata’s not sure if Kenma’s even still breathing at this point but he trusts it, he has to be alive. Scooping the guy up, he quickly finds himself wincing in pain as the weight in his arms presses down on miscellaneous shards that split his skin on contact- he tries not to notice them through the baring of teeth. For once, Hinata is grateful for Kenma’s awful eating habits; his light weight may have just saved his life considering how weak Hinata was in the moment. Even in the state he was in, Hinata could carry Kenma with relative ease.

With knees that wobble and a body that trembles, the moment Hinata rises with Kenma in his arms he begins to feel ill, the churning of the stomach accompanying a wave of vertigo. The scents don’t help, now that he genuinely recognizes what it is: an amalgamation of different insides ripped out. How the hell had he and Kenma survived? Hinata retches again, having nothing left in his stomach to gag up but acid which never makes it past the uvula, leaving a burning sensation in his throat as it passes back down and makes him feel worse. He needs to get away from this god awful scent. He has to get them out of here- _Kenma needed help._

The guy’s hip crashes into an upturned table nearly immediately, finding his equilibrium thrown off with his body’s feeble condition. Every time he placed a foot down, his muscles winced, already feeling tight and bruised from whatever blow he’d taken. And god, he was sure that if his condition didn’t take him out, this smell sure as fuck would. Hinata finds his eyes squeezing shut as he treks through the rest of the room, seeing bodies. Some are relatively intact, others… not so much. The guy feels them beneath his feet, too- feels every time something shatters or squishes. The windows are shattered and busted all over the floor, and there are objects and piles of concrete in places so high they’re impossible to reach. Bits of wooden things caught on fire; a cracked, abandoned iPhone. He could hear a few souls groaning here and there as well, but stopping to check on them doesn’t even occur to Hinata. A selfish tingle arises in his heart, glad that most of this blood wasn’t Kenma’s. It relieved him, and in his panic, he wasn’t afraid to admit that. _“It’s going to be okay,”_ he mutters quietly, pulling Kenma to his chest, _“it’s going to be okay…”_

The fact that there was no urge to tag Kenma’s name onto the end of that sentence made him wonder just who he was talking to; _Kenma, or himself._

 _Lucky_ is what they were, he and Kenma. Hinata doesn’t quite realize it yet, and he doesn’t have the capacity to take it in yet, either. Presently, he was just pissed off about all this now, but the future would come quickly to confirm just how lucky they were, so unrealistically lucky amongst the others in the cafe. Motionless people, people left to the gruesome fate of rotting in a pool of their own insides…

But right now, Hinata just wanted out of here, even if other people had survived. A majority of these people were _dead_ , and _dead they would stay._

At least, that’s what Hinata _thought._ Granted, that’s what anyone would think, though.

Shoulder held down, Hinata shoves himself out into the open world, the fresh air allowing Hinata to breathe and realize just how fucked up that scenario had been, how thick the air had become with spoils. The man collapses to the pavement, nearly dropping Kenma on the way down. Again, he dry heaves, feeling so exhausted it coaxed him onto his stomach, lying chest down with his head resting on Kenma’s torso, nose tilted away from the stains of blood. “Dammit,” he pants, swallowing saliva that had foamed white with dehydration, “goddamn it.”

He can see it easily from where he lay: a deep crater in the ground not even a whole building away, still housing heavy smoke and scattered bits of shrapnel, accompanied by even more bodies that the redhead thankfully wasn’t close enough for any of his senses to distinguish.

Hinata isn’t sure what it is about it, but something disturbs him about that crater beyond a surface level, anxiety bubbling up into its stomach. It smelled funny, a chemical potency, reeking even from the small flames catching the corners of buildings and pavement. Hinata doesn’t know jack shit about bombs or warfare or anything of the sort, but he knows for a fact that he doesn’t like the way it smells, natural scent or not. It gives his weary body haste, that smell, a motivation, wanting so desperately to just be safe. He needs to get back to the hotel, needs to get Kenma help and needs to make sure Natsu is okay- god, she must be scared out of her _mind_ right now. That, or she hasn’t even noticed- earbuds still plugged into her ears, that was a plausible fear of Hinata’s. _‘Safe,’_ is the one thing on Hinata’s mind, _‘where is safe??’_

By the looks of it, safe isn’t anywhere, really.

Few people are left on this street by the time Hinata rises again. Most people had piled into nearby buildings, either ditched their cars or went down with them, but Hinata could still hear the screams of many echoing off in distant streets. Yet somehow, the place was still desolate, the lack of sirens and flocks of people reducing panic and bringing forth meager apprehension. It was not fear that consumed Hinata, rather horror. The world wasn’t supposed to be this quiet in times of panic.

One thing was for sure, though- he _really_ didn’t like this place now that all the lights were off.

Kenma in his embrace, Hinata takes off again- his energy sapped but his mental state no less eager to get out of there- away from the bombs and fallen buildings beginning to billowing smoke from a sky already painted gray.

_He never got to see Skytree._

  
  


**It’s been around two weeks, more or less, since they started appearing.**

  
**I’ve been hearing a lot of names for them around here, but the vast majority of us just call the damned things _“lurkers”_ , as it was kind of the first collective name given to them around here. Narita coined that one. I didn’t even want to give those hellsent demons a name. THEY is all that they are. THEY is all that they ever will be to me.**

**We haven’t the slightest clue on how they’re functioning; they’ve got a pulse alright, but like fuck can another living creature can take a bullet to the guts and keep on plugging like its nothing. Their bodies look and smell as if they’ve rotted away, all sickly and pale, eating away at their cartilage, but yet they still bleed. Half dead, half alive. Obviously got something to do with the bombs; I’ve heard from some that there must’ve been some modified virus in it or something- _biological warfare._ It corrupts them. Each and every one of us- we know what they want from us.**

  
**Most claim that it takes a couple of days to turn, those who haven’t truly watched it happen. Others claim that, no no, it only takes a couple of hours!**

  
**I watched a woman turn in just fifteen minutes, bleeding out from the space between the shoulder and the neck. No one really believes me, not even Suga-san, but I have yet to understand why they would believe such a horrific claim to be false besides denial.**

  
**Once they’re gone, they’re mindless. They can’t hear you. They don’t see you as human, they see you as FOOD. As PREY. Still don’t know a whole lot about them, but we know they rely heavily on hearing and smell- the only thing that’s on their mind is to eat, then eat some more, then eat again- it’s a senseless hunger that wouldn’t be quenched by the blood of a thousand men. Greedy sons of bitches always want more.**

  
**To make matters all the worse, none of them act entirely the same, either. Some of them are faster, some of them are smarter- their predictability is that next to none. Most we see just kind of lumber around, all slow and sluggish, snap at you if you get too close. They’re not all that problemsome on their own, but they tend to group together in what also has many names, but most commonly goes by “ hordes.”**

  
**The only way we’ve found to actually kill these things is a bullet to the head, blunt force trauma. Even if you were to decapitate it, that lolling head would still be able to function. They’re not human anymore; I’ve learned not to view them that way, others are still stuck on a painful past. As far as I’m concerned, they’re repulsive.**

  
**The good news is that no jets have been spotted since the Panic, the bad news is nor has any signs of help. If I’m completely honest with myself, I can already feel myself beginning to lose hope- I’m not inherently disbelieving that help will come, but that help won’t come in my lifetime to see it. Every day another one of those motherfuckers emerges, and with every new demon born it feels as if they’re each taking off one more tiny unit of my life: years, days, hours- it’s not difficult to believe that someday I won’t end up as one of them. Doesn’t mean it’s not still heartening to see some cheerful faces still lingering around, though.**

_“He should have been back by now, dammit.”_

Beneath the shadow of a massive hotel, Tanaka's eyes flit upwards, finding his attention caught. A tiny, brunette man he’d like to consider his best friend had his back turned to him, focused heavily on their makeshift wall, not looking at anything in particular- maybe its doors. Tanaka snaps his notebook shut with the pen still wedged between its papers and tosses it aside, using his own legs as leverage to stand. The man notes how the sun was conspicuously higher than when he had left.

“Don’t waste your time worrying about him, Noya.” Tanaka gives the other guy a clap on the back, “he’s held his own since day one out there, I’m sure he’s fine.”

Still, an unsettled tension stifles the air. It’s a decent day outside, not too hot and not too cold, lacking a breeze to trifle with the temperature. It would be a good day to finish their walls, but they’re yet to be brought the supplies to do so. In front of him, Nishinoya folds his arms. “I just- don’t understand how he thinks he can just… keep doing all this, you know??” Nishinoya gestures vaguely to the world around him, “Lurkers number him about one to a million, and it’s not like the guy actually tells anyone what he sees out there. If that guy dies, our entire base practically has to start from scratch.”

Nothing about what Nishinoya says is untrue and it gives Tanaka a split second’s worth of paranoia. But he doesn’t let it weigh on him. _“You try and reason with the guy, then,”_ retorts Tanaka, “kid’s here for a solid five minutes acting like he’s got a stick up his ass the entire time before he’s gone again.”

In response, Nishinoya runs a hand through greasy, matted hair. Funny seeing it in that state, so natural- Tanaka wasn’t sure he’d seen the guy with his hair down since middle school. “What am I supposed to do, _offer to be his sidekick?”_ Nishinoya asks crossly, “neither one of us can do anything physical about the situation and you know that- we’ve had our asses pinned to the floor over the fortification of these walls since day one. So, if there’s not a point, like _fuck_ am I engaging in conversation with him.”

Tanaka nods in understanding, he’s not wrong. “The guy might just be the world’s biggest asshole, but really, you’ve gotta give him some credit- kid’s got some balls for running out there all by himself every single day,” Tanaka muses. Nishinoya’s tongue clicks in response. “A hell of a body to be able to do that shit endlessly, too.”

Many emotions circulated around the group in reference to their own special runner- a combination of tentative loathing and genuine admiration, a fantasy that people would look up to them in the same way only they would do the job better.

Their runner did all the dirty work for them, only with a bad attitude- the group leader that no one wanted yet couldn’t deny their authority. Man oh man, what they would give to just be half of what-

_“Open the gate!!”_

Suddenly alert and spry, the pair’s heads swivel to the doors. Though sight beyond them was impossible, that was the voice they’d been waiting to hear all goddamn day.  
_“Shit-”_ cries Ennoshita from his spot at sentry, “he’s got lurkers on his six- Tanaka, Noya, gate!! Now!!!”

_“Fuck’s sake.”_

The chainlink fence around the establishment they’d beefed up with miscellaneous items strewn due to the bombs- that was their _“wall”,_ their _“gate”._ Disheveled wooden planks, barbed wire, metal from car parts, even sticks sharpened into pikes waiting for unfortunate lurkers to pass into, everything had been tied or nailed or taped or something to its foundation. Wasn’t pretty, but it did its job. Its gate was on wheels, a little less fortified for maneuverability, could be locked. It finished itself off with a tiny watch tower built to be able to see over the fence, shoot at any oncoming lurkers assuming it wouldn’t attract a hundred more-

_“Open the fucking gate!!!”_

Restlessness kicks and Tanaka’s not even the one being chased. Hastily, Nishinoya picks the lock and Tanaka heaves with all his might, creating a human-sized gap in their wall- _lurker-sized, too._ And not even a tenth of a second afterward, their runner comes flying through, letting out a half-grunt-half-scream before stumbling to the ground, sliding a foot or two on his side. _‘A second too late and that guy would’ve been eaten alive,’_ is what Tanaka’s brain renders, but even with their fortunate timing there still wasn’t a second to spare. Tanaka hears the footsteps of the lurker pummeling out behind the doors and holy shit was this one was _fast._

Their runner looks up from the ground on all fours, white, oxygenated saliva leaking from his lips, “Tanaka, get the _fucking gate closed!!!”_

“Oh _shit!”_

Nishinoya screams, taking a flying few steps back as a flailing arm pierces the gap at the last second, the chainlink rattling aggressively against Tanaka’s hands, sending unnerving vibrations through his wrists. Tanaka shifts and puts his entire weight into his arms, listening to its ghoulish screams far too close for comfort. “Noya-san, get an axe!!” He cries, “get fucking _something!!!”_

Noya darts off, but their runner is quicker.

With the lashing of a foot, Tanaka hears a crack so wet and sickening he nearly loses both his grip on the handle and the food in his stomach as the man makes his presence well known. The lurker lets out a horrible shriek, the arm that grabbed at them mere seconds ago completely shattered at the elbow and dangling by mere tendrils of rotting muscle. _“Lurker bastards!!”_

He takes the thing’s arm into both hands and, placing his foot on the wall, manages to rip the entire half right off, the snap of the gate shutting echoing loud when the creature recoils. From his hands, the severed arm oozes something a little less than blackish-brown blood, trickling from the joints that had thrashed lively just moments earlier. Their runner, by the end of all this, is heaving to catch his breath.

“Fucking hell...”

Tanaka just stares, wide-eyed as the other man snaps the lock over the gate’s door, coughing and gagging. The rotting arm slips from his fingers and onto the ground with a dull thud.

Tanaka’s lips curl into an exhausted smirk. _“Heh...”_

_“Welcome back, there, Kageyama.”_

The lurker spits and hisses its protest.

Kageyama ignores his jibe, slamming a broad fist on the gate that startles the lurker into silence for a second or two while the man leans his head back towards the sun, his hands on his head with the gore facing upwards so not to get it in his hair. He’s not even fazed by the lurker’s desperate rattling to get in. Ennoshita stares down at the two with a rather guilty look; “holy... shit,” he begins, eyeing the arm laying on the ground, “sorry for not shooting it, guys. I didn’t-“

 _“Didn’t want to attract any more goddamn lurkers,”_ Kageyama finishes breathlessly with that low, attractive voice of his, then wipes the decomposing flesh off his fingers and onto his white tank top. Not as if Kageyama’s worried about preserving the shirt’s state anyways, considering all the blood and sweat and grime it’s already caked stiff with. More like a napkin for the undead at this point. “That’s all fine by me.”

It wasn’t as if Kageyama did all their dirty work- just… _most of it._ If they needed anything, anything of severe value, whether it be medicine or weaponry, Kageyama was the man to do it. Because Kageyama- Kageyama did things it without a second thought or care for repercussions. Stupid and dangerous in a lot of ways, sure, but when you were hella good at everything you did? Fuck, if Tanaka gave the guy a hitlist, he was sure Kageyama would take to it in a heartbeat. There was something about this dude, his precision and accuracy and calm radiance beneath a storm of panic, something about him made him _fearless_. Whether it be true ignorance or genuine courage, Tanaka knew the base would be in good hands with Kageyama around.

That is if he would keep to task, of course.

“Hey, Kageyama!”

Tanaka turns, as does everybody. Such a loud, recognizable voice. From behind them, Nishinoya reappears, carrying a fire axe nonchalantly over his shoulders- guess he’d figured out by the arm lying limp at the door that they’d got the gate to shut. “You left two and a half hours ago, man!” Nishinoya confronts, “what was the holdup…?”

Kageyama runs a clean hand through his hair, avoiding eye contact- a normal thing for Kageyama to do. “I was… _surveying again,”_ he answers flatly. _“Mapping.”_

“Yeah, okay; less surveying, more gathering, please.” Nishinoya sets the axe up along the side of the wall, “if a big horde hits this place, we’re absolutely _fucked_ without more planks for support- you can play Dora the Explorer when you’ve got a sufficient supply of men and planks and guns.”

Kageyama sucks air heavily through his mouth. _“Yeah…_ yeah, I’ll get on it.” He said that every time.

Annoyance has already begun to bury its way beneath Tanaka’s exterior with Kageyama’s redundant comments, it’s mild but Tanaka knows how this show runs. It’s bound to get stronger and he can already see it brimming in Nishinoya by the way he speaks. Tanaka starts for the bag Kageyama had dropped when he ran in and with a hopeless sense of cheerfulness, Tanaka asks: “Wha’d all you bring?”

Kageyama stays silent.

Tanaka grabs at the straps of the bag and braces himself, prepared for something heavy concerning what Kageyama normally brought back. But this time, he nearly falls back when his hand meets his chest nearly instantaneously.

Tanaka’s thoughts echo aloud. “What the fuck??”

The guy rips it open, praying to God for something good, even though he knew it was near impossible with the bag’s weight. Its contents revealed a less-than-adequate amount of food and water, a package of nails, some first aid kits, like- maybe a four-pack of batteries-

To be completely truthful, it was pitiful.

“You’re joking right?”

Nishinoya’s eyes aren’t usually this hard of a brown color. Kageyama just shrugs, looking unthreatened. “Like I said, _exploring._ Mapping shit out-”

“And like I said, get your fucking priorities straight!” Nishinoya has gone stiff, his voice heightened, “we have a base to be built, people to be feeding- we can’t have our only reliable source out doing fuck all. Just- get what we asked for, _damn it!”_ Nishinoya is panting lightly by the time he’s done, but the reaction he gets from Kageyama prompts him onwards. “Every day, the death toll _grows_ out there, Kageyama-kun, and _more_ _people_ flood in here. We need to be _certain_ that we’re prepared to face whatever hell is eventually going to come.”

And in an instant, Kageyama snaps. “If you don’t like the way that I run this place, why don’t _you_ go out there and risk your own ass for once, _huh??”_

But Nishinoya doesn’t back down. Tanaka can tell by the enraged sheen to his eyes that he’s had enough of Kageyama’s bullshit, and really, Tanaka feels the same. It's been weeks, and jobs that should’ve been made top priority remain unfinished. “since when do _you_ run this place?!”

“Since _I_ first set up here!”

Every word that comes out Kageyama’s mouth manages to rub Tanaka the wrong way; Kageyama might’ve held the leading act, but like damn was it a one-man show. As their runner storms past them, Nishinoya’s hand latches onto his shoulder, swiftly receiving a backhand to shake the guy off. It strikes Tanaka somewhere, somewhere deep beneath his skin; the man begins advancing towards Kageyama with direct intention to quarrel, to bitch about how everything that the man was doing was wrong. That Kageyama needed to start thinking about someone other than his damn self for once-

But those eyes, powerful enough to tranquilize the words atop Tanaka’s inflamed tongue, brought a distinctive tingle along the spine- and god knows Tanaka’s pride was not one so easily challenged. They were so damn _cold_ , so _defiant;_ they stung far worse than a simple slap to the wrist, worse than a cut or a burn. You didn’t know _what_ Kageyama was capable of when he gave _that_ glare.

That glare was the sole cause of Kageyama’s authority around here. Authentic, almost.

Tension swirling around them, Tanaka’s mouth clamps shut, expecting Kageyama to lunge at him right then and there. But, the only thing Tanaka gets is a curl of the lip and a click of the tongue. _“Tell Daichi I’m headed back out.”_

This wasn’t rare for Kageyama. Typically speaking, the man just dropped the loaded bags from off his shoulders, replaced them with fresh ones and then set off again. Commonly, Kageyama’s coming and going went without an exchange of words, but today was obviously not the case.

With a deep, cold shoulder, their runner finally passes them, headed for the doors of the hotel. Tanaka realizes that with lurkers still out front, he’ll use his atypical escape route. This hotel had many exits, but only two of them were left functional: the main entrance which they guarded with their lives and one on an opposite end. Like most buildings, the hotel had a fire exit. So, in other words, this was probably the last time they’d see him again until another five hours passed.

“Hey, Kageyama!!”

Kageyama stops, but he doesn’t turn to them.

“Make it worth it this time, okay??!” Calls Nishinoya. Kageyama just rolls out a shoulder. _“I will,”_ he promises weakly, and at last, the man jostles his way through the doors.

Nishinoya’s quick to break. “Daaamn, that guy really gets on my nerves,” he spits bitterly, cracking his knuckles- like he could pick a fight with Kageyama. Tanaka just sighs, taking another look at the lamentable contents inside the bag, “I don’t think he would’ve been a particularly bad guy before this. I just think he’s just asserted himself at the top of the food chain here and thinks that he can do whatever the hell he wants because of it. And because no one knows how to deal with him. He’s like a toddler- _you can’t even argue with him.”_

“You know, I hope Daichi blows a gasket at him one of these days. Kageyama’s sure got some muscle, but that man is built like a _fucking tank-_ It’d be damn nice to see Kageyama-kun get wiped on the floor with every once in a while; maybe show him that he isn’t the god he thinks he is.

“How old did you say Kageyama was, Noya-san?”

“Only twenty something. Twenty three, twenty two.”

Tanaka hisses and skulks back to his spot he’d been in before everything went down; “no wonder he rules like an oppressive dictator.”

“You’re only like a year older than him,” responds Ennoshita, and Tanaka hurls a clump of dirt at him. “ _Shut up._ At least I’m mature.”

“Mature?! You just threw dirt at me!”

“And I also told you to shut up!!”

The boys laugh it off.

Sliding an empty pack around his shoulder, a deep hiss fumes from Kageyama’s lips as he thinks to himself, eyes trained on nothing but what was set in stone in front of him. He doesn’t get why _they_ disrespected him, of all fucking people. After all, was it not Kageyama who had managed to keep his thoughts rational on the day of the bombings? Was it not Kageyama who established this place, kept them alive? Particularly, it got underneath Kageyama’s skin when Tanaka-san and Nishinoya-san regarded him with impertinence, as the guy remembers quite well the two of them being there in the midst of Tokyo’s hysteria.

On that day, the day of Panic, it had gotten ahold of all of them. All of them except one.

_“Stay here.” Kageyama throws an empty hand at them in warning as the world continues to crumble around them. “If anyone comes into this building, check for any wounds; any fucking bites.”_

_Nishinoya was the first to counter-argue. “Where the hell are you going?!”_

_“To look for survivors.”_

_“Survivors??!” His words were an outcry. “What, is this the damn apocalypse now…?!”_

Kageyama’s eyes darken as he stares at his carpet, brimming with anger. You tell me, Nishinoya-san… was this _not_ the damn apocalypse?

Kageyama sighs heavily, pulling his shirt off over his head. His entire room smelled musty and sweaty, tinged with something spoiling; all his doing, of course. He tried hard to keep it in at least relative order, but it was next to impossible with the amount of time he spent here. He held the old shirt out away from him as usual, which, he always found amusement in. There was something completely different about having lurker guts on his body than lurker guts on his hands; Kageyama didn’t like having it on his hands. He could stomach gore being anywhere else on his body, even on his face, but he couldn’t stand it on his hands… how weird.

God, he _feels_ gross though. Kageyama considers taking a quick shower for a moment because god damn, water would feel about heavenly right about now. But, nothing’s new- the more he thinks about spending time here, the more he just wants to get the hell out. This base, this was his territory and he’d claim it proudly. But there’s something about actually being here with all these scorning faces, an aura that puts Kageyama on edge, makes his heart rate bump up with each minute that passes with his feet planted at his home.

And, if he wanted to be honest, he knew well it was the feeling of being unwanted.

So, after pulling a shirt on over his head and getting obnoxiously comfortable on the edge of his bed, he packs his shit back up; water canteens, some non-perishables, Swiss Army knife in the pocket and an extra in the front pocket of the bag, just in case. Rope, tape, flashlight, gloves, binoculars, first aid- _duh_. A light handgun was typically present in the outside pockets of his bag as well, a glock, but rarely was it used and inefficiently was it used with Kageyama’s lack of experience. You kill one lurker with a single bullet and a thousand others come after it. Emergency and wide-space usage only. That’s where Kageyama lets his knives do the work, killing that is; throwing knives held in sheaths along a utility belt.

And his map- shit. Couldn’t forget that. His map was probably his most useful asset now that their life was actual hell; a bunch of papers sloppily stitched together by scotch tape and quick, ten-second sketches; it was an eyesore- but it did its job. Better than an atlas because this one actually directed Kageayma to resources, told him where lurkers were and where they weren’t. At least a mile in every direction, Kageyama had mapped out everything he saw with precise detail, wrote down everything he could about locations and dangers in his notebook that accompanied it.

Kageyama wasn’t the most liked, but you couldn’t tell him he wasn’t efficient in everything that he did; it would be a lie to do so.

And after he’s taken that short-lived break, Kageyama’s headed out for the road again. His road, just hoping that his survival instincts would once again mercilessly spare him what their God had not.

  
  


“God is dead.”

Sunlight through the windows and gives the bedroom a calm, golden glow, establishing a false sense of peace as it marked the start of a brand new day in a brand new hell. Hinata, with a hair clip in his mouth, replies to Kenma’s comment with a muffled “okay, edgelord. Quit talking like that, we’re fine.”

If Hinata would’ve known on that day, the day the bombs had dropped, that he’d be stuck in this place for weeks on end, he would’ve started counting down his days. He thinks that, maybe, a visual count of how many days had gone by would give him a sense of sanity to cling to- maybe it would’ve done the exact opposite. Maybe watching the weeks fly by would’ve driven Hinata mad, but this world had already begun to feel like an eternity’s sentence.

“At least _you_ aren’t,” a voice claims from the other end of the room, and Hinata’s eyes flit upwards. A girl sits in the corner, looking bored, matted orange hair still held in pigtails in the same way it had been since they arrived here. Hinata couldn’t have been happier seeing that uninterested face of hers, knowing that it could be rotting away at the cheeks by now.

The three were alive. Not doing too hotly, but alive. Pinned up in a quiet little house, Hinata wasn’t so sure they weren’t the only people left alive in all of Tokyo- of all people, a guy with a life-threatening wound, a scrappy redhead, and a sixteen-year-old girl were the survivors. Holed up in a little house, Hinata can assure it hadn’t been the best location for a base, but he hadn’t been thinking about that on the way in- Kenma couldn’t manage more than twenty minutes on his feet without getting a migraine, who knew what would happen if he stepped foot out there where the air reeked of decay and still held the sharpness of winter. Hinata’s just glad the guy didn’t end up in a coma. Though, he wonders if all that sleep would’ve maybe done the guy some good. A concussion was evident, proving itself in the way it fluctuated between unbearably painful and not hurting more than a pinch. Those first few days had been rough on the three- every few hours, Kenma would wake up with a fire in the skull that took a minimum of fifteen minutes to coax back down even with medication. Scared Hinata to death, thought the guy was going to die a couple of times- but, he lived, a welt on the forehead and all.

Hinata gathers Kenma’s bangs and gently pulls them out of the way of the wound- which, by now, had nearly healed over, Hinata just didn’t want a strand getting lodged in the ointment. “Leave ‘im be, Natsu. Guy’s restless.”

“Damn straight,” mumbles Kenma as Hinata pulls the wrap around his forehead, “the most I’ve done in a week is _sleep.”_

“And that’s what you’ll be doing for another week,” replies Hinata, and Kenma groans. “I’m _not_ letting you out there.”

The blonde swats loosely at the hands that still play with his hair. “I don’t want to just keep sitting here while you two risk your lives every time you step outside,” he sighs. “What if you up and die or some shit?”

Well, that was a blunt way to put it. Again, Hinata couldn’t blame him, he must be awfully on edge. “God, _this again?”_

“We let you out there now and you’ll see the sun, get a migraine, and die,” replies Natsu, now stretched out on the floor lazily. Kenma points a sassing finger at her, _“don’t you take his side.”_ Hinata grins arrogantly.

“I like you more, I want you to live longer.”

Hinata then squints. _“Hey-”_

“I think if I stay here any longer, I’ll go _insane,”_ Kenma remarks, to which Hinata sighs; Hinata knows all too well he’d be arguing the same if he were in Kenma’s shoes. “Well, you know the rules- we don’t come back, we’re not here to govern you. Come and go as you please, but right now you get headaches every time you stand.”

“It’s not _every time,”_ scoffs Kenma.

“Fine, then every _other_ time. I love you too much to watch you get delirious and jump into a biter’s arms.”

“And I love you too much to have you vanish without a trace and I never get to know what happened,” Kenma retorts, and Hinata lets a sharp exhale leave his lips, frustration rotting away under sympathy. “I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, Kenma. I can promise you that,” he says, still unmoving.

Kenma looks as if he’s going to retort, but he stops, a heavy gleam in otherwise dull eyes. Slowly, he falls back into Hinata. He’s become clingier since those bombs, Hinata’s noticed- all of them have, really. “I’m just tired of being in you guys’ way.”

To this, Hinata rolls his eyes. “You’re not, don’t even say that.”

“You can’t help the fact that you got your head bashed in,” Natsu chimes in with a mocking tap to the temple, waddling over to them to attack Hinata with the force of her whole body. The two roll over as they collide, Hinata immediately going to whine about his wrist which hadn’t been damaged in the slightest as Kenma still clings to his arm, the tiniest of laughs coming from his mouth. _“You’re gaining muscle,”_ he comments with a squeeze to the triceps. Hinata didn’t see the difference, but maybe it was because he was far more concerned about the fact that his skin and hair hadn’t met water in two weeks. He stank, he had to have- but it was nothing compared to the reek of those who walked among them outside. Natsu smiles. “Only took the damn apocalypse, huh...?” she comments.

 _“Piss off,”_ Hinata replies, gently battering her with the sides of his hands as he finally managed to fend her off. Only took the damn apocalypse.

The corners of Hinata’s lips curl into a smile as he lays there, bangs out of his face, staring at the ceiling. Quiet Hinata goes, still having words on the tip of his tongue but he decides that he can speak them later; he just wants to enjoy this for a second. Peaceful, everyday moments like this were hard to come by nowadays, fighting for survival and all, even with the three of them here. He wanted this moment to last forever. So, he lets his sore, knotted muscles relax, lets himself get used to the feeling of Kenma on his left and Natsu on his right. Because he might not ever get this moment again.

“Man, am I glad we’re all alive.”

“We love you too, man,” says Kenma. There’s a shallowing in the air by the time Natsu responds again, “you think we’re ever gonna get out of here?”

Eyebrows drawing together with subconscious belief, Hinata states firmly; _“yeah_. Yeah, we will.”

Silence ensues. “God, I hope mom’s alright.” Natsu shifts a little closer to him at this. Hinata’s heart sinks, she’s been on about that a lot.

“I’m sure she’s fine, Natsu,” Kenma comforts, “if she’s half of what you are, she’s making it. Plus, who knows if its even spread outside of Tokyo yet...”

“I’m not kidding, you guys,” says Hinata, rising back up to throw his arms around the two of them, “we’ll get out of here and we’ll see our families again. I know we will, we’re only a couple of weeks into this shit.”

“What if you get rescued while you’re out?” Asks Kenma, “what if they won’t come back for me?”

“Well, then they’d be doing a shitty job at rescuing,” states Hinata, “but even if they won’t… I’d continue to take my chances in this hell until they could.”

Kenma scoffs. “You care too much, damn it. You’re so cute.”

“Well gee, I’m sorry for loving you, asshole.”

Giggling, the blonde puts him in a light headlock, ruffling his hair. _“Little shit.”_

 _“Ewww, get a roooom,”_ Natsu says, picking up her hand and leaning away from the two while Hinata just laughs, Kenma releasing him with a shove to the arm.

No, the three of them didn’t account to much- but they were family. That was all that Hinata could ask for in this scenario, his little sister and dearest friend at his hip, where the hell he’d be without them was a question he didn’t even want to consider. Hinata’s laughter dies down as he stretches out, leans his head back against the wall, panting to catch his breath. And once again, it’s quiet. Heart-heavily quiet.

“You know, Kenma…”

The blonde’s head tilts in his direction. _“Mm?”_

He watches Kenma visibly stiffen when he sees the look in Hinata’s eyes. “On the day of the bombings, y’know…” Hinata’s words barely fall off his tongue, “when I… saw you laying there, and thought that- thought that you were dead…”

Kenma’s jaw falls open just enough to have his lips part. Hinata doesn’t talk about the day of the bombing very much, if at all. The ginger runs a hand through messy hair, sighing. “I was so damn… _scared_ that our last real conversation was going to be on that day… I- I don’t really know where I’m going with all this, but-”

His eyes flit to the window, coming to find the sun just above the horizon line. _“I’m headed out while this conversation is a memorable one.”_

Hinata feels Kenma’s hand stiffen around his arm, but the words don’t trigger fast enough to have it clamp down, leaving it suspended and reaching as Hinata goes for his bag. _“Headed out???”_ Kenma echoes, eyebrows twitching. Hinata sees the man look to Natsu for some insight, only to find her in the same questioning state; he hadn’t mentioned any of this to either of them. “Where the hell do you think _you’re_ going??” asks Natsu.

 _“South,”_ he responds, piling copious amounts of jerky into his running bag, letting them catch on. They do so quickly; Kenma shoots upright. “God damn it, Shou- don’t tell me you’re-”

 _“I’m going back to the hotel to get our shit back,”_ Hinata finishes boldly, fluffing out his bag to give it more room. “I’m prepared this time.”

Immediately, Kenma begins shuffling in his spot, threatening to stand up, and Hinata notices nearly immediately. His hands flare out, a desperate quality etched into his shriek. “Kenma, just listen, I can do this!”

Kenma’s teeth bare but Natsu cuts to the chase quicker. _“You fucking-_ last time you tried that you nearly got yourself _killed!”_ She cries, approaching him. Kenma nods, backing her up from where he sat; “just wait until I can go with you, Shouyou, _please...”_

“The only reason I almost got killed last time was because it was three days into the apocalypse,” says Hinata, keeping his chin held high, “I didn’t know what to expect when I headed over there, _I know what to expect now._ I can do this. I can.”

“Damn it, Hinata, _please,”_ Kenma begs, desperation etched into his voice, “it’s not that big of a deal...”

_“It might be if someone else gets there before I can get there.”_

Natsu’s eyes are dark and bitter against his back. “We haven’t seen another living person since the day of the bombings, Shou-kun. Trying to infiltrate an entire hotel’s worth of the dead in just for a couple of bags is just... fucking stupid. _Too much.”_

Hinata’s eyes sharpen, wheeling around to face her with a slim, white card wedged between two of his fingers. He taps at the date on the back, “we only have a few days left to get this card expires, Kenma.”

“Our valuables are not as valuable as you,” says Kenma, but Hinata easily misreads his sincerity, interpreting his tone as disbelief. Disbelief that he could do this. “This isn’t all that important-“

“Maybe it’s important to _me_ , Kenma.”

Pausing as the anger in his eyes fizzles out into shock, Kenma gives Hinata just enough time to realize that he’d practically called the guy selfish. But the guy recovers much faster than Hinata does, leaving him in a pool of his own conscious guilt. “You know what, just-“ Kenma stops, exhaling hard, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation, “I don’t wanna lose you, Shouyou. I couldn’t bear that.”

Inhaling deeply, the ginger’s tone changes. _“And you’re not going to._ I have everything I could possibly need in my bag already, Kenma. You… _can't change my mind.”_

Kenma just blinks. “‘S this why you’ve been letting so many bags of jerky out to dry...?”

“Yeah.”

_“You’re so stupid.”_

Hinata rolls his eyes. “We’re in the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse, Kenma,” he says softly, “making stupid decisions is... _an occupational hazard.”_

Kenma’s jaw clenches reluctantly, settling back down against the wall, and Hinata breathes hard. He hears him mutter something underneath his breath, probably something negative, and for a split second it almost does make Hinata change his mind- but Hinata’s not distraught for long because in a mere instant Natsu’s at his feet.

_“I’m going with you.”_

_“Hell no you aren’t-“_

Eyes wide, Hinata drags the girl back with a hand on the wrist as she tries to escape him, “you’re staying here with Kenma; what if I don’t come _back_ , Natsu-“

Natsu frees herself with the yanking of the arm, “that’s what I’m going along for, dumbass. To make sure you will come back.”

Feisty motherfucker. “Natsu, _no-“_

 _“Please?”_ she begs.

“You don’t even know the plan.”

“Then what if I just _watch??_ I don’t want you going there alone, niichan.”

“Don’t you dare try and _nii-chan_ your way into going with me,” scolds Hinata, “I’ll be gone a half an hour at most-”

Natsu grabs at the front of his shirt, getting all up in his face; damn, her height never ceased to piss him off, how she was so many years younger and yet only a couple of inches shorter. _“And I can halve that time,”_ she says lowly before gently shoving him back, “I’m going.”

The redhead just stares with a baffled expression as the girl walks off to go get her things, turning to Kenma. _“You see what I have to deal with?”_

Kenma’s expression remains flat. “ _Runs in the family._ You two be careful out there.”

Wish he could promise that; Hinata couldn't ensure they would be. This mission, it wasn’t fullproof- it could be disastrous, could work like a charm- Hinata couldn’t say for sure. In fact, the guy only knew one thing about this mission: that it either would be successful, or it wouldn’t.

_‘God is dead.’_

“You know where everything is held if I- we don’t…” Hinata bites at his lip, trying to conjure the wording of his sentences, but Kenma beats him there. “Yeah,” he responds. “Yeah, I do.” Hinata’s found certain emotions increasingly hard to express nowadays. The blonde is staring at his lap with an absent expression.

Guilt. Hinata's trapped in it.

If he and Natsu were to die on this trip, where would Kenma go? Shit, what would he _do?_ He was wounded, all alone, in a world he hadn’t even got the chance to meet yet. Would he be able to fend for himself as efficiently as Hinata could? Would he even survive in a world like this??

Shaking his head, Hinata makes his way to the door, putting on a face of false bravery. _‘Don’t think about that. You’ll be fine.’_

“Shouyou!” Natsu calls, the familiar rattling of the chains on her luggage echoing from the other room, “got everything ready, let’s go!”

“I will be back, Kenma. You know that, right?”

Kenma’s eyes meet his one last time; they’re clouded over, masking emotions in that way that Kenma could. What was he thinking about? “I trust that, Shouyou.”

Forcing the tightness in his throat away, Hinata smiles at him instead. “Thank you for believing in me.”

Despite his lack of faith, Hinata finds himself praying more frequently. Whether it was genuine faith or false hope, Hinata didn’t like to say. _‘Dear lord,’_ he begins as he picks up his own luggage, ‘ _give us the fucking strength to do this, for Kenma’s sake. I can’t die. I won’t die. Not today, I won’t.’_

_“Shouyou??”_

“Coming, Natsu!”

And with a final turn of the back, he trots through the bedroom door, making sure to lock it before he stepped out. _‘Amen.’_

And the two are off.

He’s headed directly for the window; his one and only ticket out of here. Courtesy to Kenma, scaling rooftops was a much easier method of getting about than scurrying along the ground for, well, obvious reasons. Natsu’s there waiting, per usual. As soon as Hinata pries the frame open, he hears the groans of countless biters beneath them, waiting. The sounds they made didn’t really bother Hinata much anymore, as he was used to it; but to someone who’d never experienced them before, they were unsettling, to say the least. Like the faint groans of someone dying. Which made sense, because, in a detailed explanation, they were dying, but they were alive. A+ for creativity, I know.

Natsu goes out first, Hinata watching her like a hawk as she does so as to make sure she doesn’t slip. When Hinata’s up to bat, he tries not to look down as he twists his body around to climb onto the roof; an effortless stunt he’d done countless times before, but still made him uneasy with the looming consequence of falling. There was no hope if he hit the ground and broke a leg or got a concussion; hell, even if it just knocked the wind out of him, he’d be torn apart before he could even feel his lungs again.

What a fun thought.

The worst part was, it wasn’t even some impractical nightmare; it was quite realistic. Something like that wasn’t even an honorable death in this world.

Grunting, Hinata swings his leg over and wriggles onto the shingles, thankful once again that it was a fairly flat surface. He’s pretty sure that with the dragging weight of his pack, he might’ve fallen off on more than one occasion if it were any steeper.

And once he arises onto his feet, he comes to find a view awaiting him from those rooftops. The sun hung midway above the highest rooftops and the mountains in the distance still glowed a reddish haze, clinging to a sunrise that had not yet passed. Light leaked off of windows and the chrome of buildings, giving them a harsh, yellow glare that made Hinata squint against- and of course, the portrait wouldn’t be complete without the millions of biters swamping around the bases of buildings and the smoke that still rose from the halves of buildings which had been shattered by the bombs.

Hell was lovely.

“Whaddya think, Natsu?” Hinata calls to the girl a few feet away, a soft wind flowing through his hair and dragging it all to the right, “you think this place is getting any clearer??”

The siblings had always been close, but undeniably their tragedy had sewn them even closer- and they made a kickass brother-sister duo out of it. The girl just scoffs at him. “Hell no, I don’t.”

The stench of the biters wafted all the way up to him from twenty feet off the ground, and if he were not accustomed to it, he would’ve begun to choke him out upon his first deep breath.

“Do your worst, then, satan pawns,” Hinata calls, beaming them down with an overwhelming amount of sanguine in his tone, “because I am getting back to Kenma today, no matter what you throw at me.”

“Stop monologuing, it’s weird,” says Natsu, and Hinata slaps at her ribs while she stretches. “You shut up.”

The ginger stops and abruptly begins his common routine with her, throws his arms back, stretching out his legs and every muscle in his body before he stops, taking in good, deep breaths of air. ‘I am getting back to Kenma. I am getting our stuff back,’ are the words that he tells himself, as if he hasn’t stated it enough yet and as if everyone isn’t tired of reading it. He rubs at his arm, feeling the tiny bumps from that feather tattoo; “ _you ready for this?”_ Hinata asks Natsu. She just shrugs. “Ready as I’ll ever be, maybe not as ready I could be considering you haven’t mentioned a word about the plan to me.”

“Heh,” responds Hinata, scuffing his shoe on the ground to gain further traction as he sets himself into position, “I’ll run it by when we get there.”

“So that I don’t call you an idiot for your bullshit plan?”

“Sumn like that.”

And then, after the drastic bending of the knees, Hinata takes off with all the force his legs could create, sprinting across the roof in a matter of seconds. _‘The window, Shouyou, aim for the window.’_

He lines himself up like he had so many times before, throws his arms back without breaking his speed, then leaps at the building right next to him.

Feelings erode from this, both physical and emotional- this feeling like suspension, falling down. His stomach lurches in fear, but his exterior is calm; he needed to be calm. Mid-jump his hands reach out, making sense of what they could as the world blurs together with motion. His fingers snag the windowsill perfectly. Hinata grins as his feet hit brick, cushioning the blow so that he doesn’t fall.

Hell yeah.

Ignoring the pain tight in his shoulders, he hoists himself up into the building, flopping down into it with a rather unceremonious “oof”, but that's okay; only Natsu was watching, so as if he had anyone he needed to further impress.

Natsu’s hand appears a few seconds after Hinata’s on his feet and he helps her up with the grabbing of the arm. And so it began; the endless cycle of darting over and into buildings of various sizes, of dangling hundreds of feet above the ground, and risking plummeting to his death or misjudging his distance and breaking an arm or something…

It was _awesome_ ; Hinata loved it.

The feel of everything fiber and muscle working so smoothly, together as one; the horror of freefalling and the bluntly satisfying feel of when your ankles hurt after a good jump. _So_ badass.

The two go from building to building, headed in their promised direction, stopping only to catch their breath or take a swig of water or scale out a building. It was quite a tricky job, as fun as it was. Sometimes, they needed to get low enough to where the jump wouldn’t break their ankles, or high enough so that he could actually make the jump, or to a different part of the building so that things wouldn’t get in his way or… yeah, sometimes just getting out of a building could take a good while. And all the while, Hinata’s distracted by Kenma, playing out every possible situation in his head of how he’d get out of a biter’s grasp. _‘I can’t die.’_

Of course, Hinata didn’t want to die in fucking general. Joking about it was one thing, but in this world, death was suddenly much more plausible- made him nervous. However, supposing he died on this mission, there would be a chain reaction on the lives of others that he would be responsible for. The thought of Kenma being alone forever in this desolate world pried the survival scenarios Hinata kept seeing in his head to keep replaying, in hopes that they’ll prepare him for the future. Because Hinata had been there before; that damn hotel. On the day that he’d set out for it, maybe a day or two into the apocalypse, it had been completely stuffed with biters from the inside out. The likelihood of that factor changing was doubtful. In fact, the only difference Hinata expected was that now he would know how to handle those biters. He had a strategy.

The buildings that he enter become increasingly familiar; haunting. The feeling of “I know this place.” And there it was; their hotel. This was it, the moment of truth.

There weren’t any buildings close enough to it to jump, so an entry from the very top was out of the question. The streets beneath them weren’t totally crowded, at least not as much as they had been last time, but still a good twenty to thirty of them loosely wandering the path in which Hinata needed to take. It wasn’t anything Hinata couldn’t handle, though, what with the knowledge and technique he possessed. Just thirty of them felt like a heavensend. _‘Good. Now all I gotta do is get them distracted…’_

“Alright numbnuts.” Natsu sweeps the stray hairs out of her face, “what now?”

Placing his bag on the ground, Hinata begins to dig through his bag until he finds them. Rocks. A stupid, completely unnecessary thing to carry on your back and weigh you down with, right? I mean, I couldn’t think of any good reason to carry rocks unless you have a pretty stellar rock collection, that is. But, what they were being used for would come in handy. ‘ _Probably come in handy.’_

Hinata digs one of the bigger stones out of his pack, feels its weight in his hand and grins. That’ll do just nicely. ‘Alright, biters,’ he thinks as he rolls the kinks out of his shoulders; ‘ _you’re attracted to sound, aren’t you?’_

“Okay Natsu, check _this shit out.”_

With a heavy breath and a quick flex of the muscles, Hinata winds up once, then twice, then hurls the stone from the top of the building. “ _Yaga_.” A moment of silence follows before a loud clack echoes off the sides of buildings. He whips his head up and watches as both the rock bounces, and nearly every biter in the area’s head turns. ‘ _Hell yeah, this is gonna work.’_

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Natsu snorts, watching as the biters slowly began to turn; Hinata grins in delight. They needed everyone’s attention, though, before he could land the killing blow of this operation. Again, he picks up a stone and flings it at the mob below. It winds up smacking a biter in the side of the shoulder, who hisses in protest, making Hinata laugh a little. “Your aim’s about as clean as your private browser history,” Natsu comments. Hinata snorts back. “Like you’d know. I’m diligent when it comes to cleaning the computers, you wouldn’t see a thing.”

“Yeah, but I’d hear a thing.” Natsu snags the rock from Hinata’s open and shocked hand. “Let _me_ try.”

And so, Natsu joins in on the rock hurling. After another decent stretch, Hinata bullets yet another rock down into the clearing.

On impact there’s a sharp splintering sound. Loud.

Hinata was positive that every biter within a fucking quarter-mile radius could’ve heard the sound of that window shattering. The mob’s groans grow louder and they begin to make their way toward the shattered glass- not studying it, just lumbering towards it in hopes for food. Hell, even the biters inside probably heard that one. That’d do it.

The excitement Hinata feels over how well this is going can hardly be contained; this never happened. Not that he wasn’t still crossing his fingers, but; ‘ _This is working. This is actually fucking working. And now for phase two.’_

Hinata scrambles back to his bag, yanking out a specific component: beef jerky, baby. He’d been suffering through the pain of not eating them for weeks, gathering up six bags of them just to let them sit out- a dreadfully painful experience, surviving off just beans. Hinata wasn’t sure if biters would be even remotely interested in dried up jerky, but- hell, why wouldn’t they be? They were ravenous.

With a corner of the bag popped open in hopes that the voters would be able to smell it, the redhead picks up just one of the small jerky packages and holds it down like a frisbee, assuming that when he tossed it it would be a bit more aerodynamic. And in that same motion, he tosses it, too- watches the bag sail from the rooftops and land a little shorter than three-fourths of where he intended it to go, but that was still manageable. Several of the demons pause to stare at their package delivery, a couple don’t seem interested.

But not all of them.

Hinata watches with the utmost pride and relief as the biters slowly begin to recognize what the bag contained, groans turning into excited screams as they drew closer; the screams of _“dinners ready!”_. Hinata clenches his fist and cheers himself in silence; oh, how much better this was going than his first attempt.

“So this was your master plan?” Asks Natsu, hands on her hips, “throwing rocks and stale jerky at the biters??”

You can’t tell me she isn’t impressed.

Hinata repeats his actions a couple more times, popping open jerky packets and tossing them as close to the hotel as he could, more and more of the dead beginning to get interested. A couple of the bags Hinata spares, though; now that he knows that jerky works as a distraction, it’s opened up a lot of brand new windows to Hinata.

Even more biters emerge from the hotel and from the streets, boosting Hinata’s dignity and feeling of safety. Of course, it wasn’t as if he’d rounded up every last biter in the four corners of Tokyo; a few still roamed around the streets without aim, but Hinata decides that those unlucky few were nothing that Hinata couldn’t whittle into his plan.

And now, for step three; make a break for the back of the building. “They’re distracted,” says Hinata, _“let’s go.”_

Hastily, Hinata whips out all that he needs. The access card fits snuggly in the outside pocket of his bag where it wouldn’t get lost and his pocket knife rests in the pouch he wore around his leg. Last but not least comes the wrench he’d been using as an unofficial weapon; a blunt object was mandatory for this. While a knife was probably more effective, it wasn’t so easy to dig out; with the potential of it getting stuck in bone or flesh while they were on the run, it could scourge Hinata’s getaway in just those few seconds needed to take it out. Natsu appears at his side, no longer asking questions with a club of her own in her hands. She’d caught on, and when the two’s eyes meet, the young girl nods her assent. She’s ready for this. Ready as she’ll ever be.

So, with a wrench in the right hand, Hinata knew with the pounding of his heart that it was go time. Keeping the weight of his bag tight and compressed on his back, Hinata darts to the fire escape door just a few feet away from them and from there swings begins a descent down the stairs with speed of that next to flight. Adrenaline was pumping, anxiety making his head work in a quicker, more congested way. Natsu’s right there behind him, just as fast- she comforted his wary brain in this moment. ‘ _Just how much longer until my perfect plan goes down the drain?’_

Upon entry, Hinata realizes that the building must be an office building of sorts. He’s not all that observant during this scene, but it doesn’t take that much initiative to notice all the cubicles and the papers that littered about the place. It’s gotta be four stories high at the very least, and to their luck, Hinata and Natsu manage the first three without bumping into any problems. The bottom floor, however, would be an entirely different story.

_“Fuck!!”_

Hinata slips and busts his ass in an attempt to stop his momentum, the biter in front of him giving a shriek in response, wheeling around to greet him. But it’s alright, Hinata’s toyed through this scenario before. From his position on the ground, Hinata whips a leg around and swipes a foot into the sides of the biter’s weakening knees. Instantly, the thing collapses, letting out a snarl that Hinata can only think to describe as hungry as it plants torso-first onto the ground next to him. Hinata’s lip curls as he takes in a fat whiff of spoiled flesh.

The fallen biter doesn’t even stand a fighting chance; before it can even react properly, Hinata has rolled on his feet again, gripping his wrench with both two hands. _“Die, you son of a bitch…!”_

With all the strength and hatred that fueled his swing, Hinata launches the weight in his hands downwards, the biter’s skull crushing on impact and prolapsing from behind. A feeling of satisfaction taints Hinata’s very morality as the dull clank of the wrench mingles with this morbid combination of crunching and squelching sounds; damn, did that feel good. The biter’s only response is a horrid twitch and a gag of a squeal as Hinata raises the wrench over his head yet again, flinging black blood onto the ceiling as he winds up then strikes again, grinning. This time, there’s much less of a crunch and more of just that mushy, thick-liquid sound. Such a perfect noise.

“It’s _dead,”_ Natsu reminds him, standing over the top of her own kill as Hinata stared back at her, almost spacing off; _‘right.’_

The wrench gives him a little tug of disinclination before it emerges from the mangled bits of brain and skull with a pop. Blood flicks onto his shirt and the floor, but there’s not a second left to savor about it- they’ve gotta go; now. And without further exchange, the siblings are off again.

Hinata sees more biters emerge after all this commotion, poking their heads from cubicles and counters, their groans inquisitive- but they don't bother wasting any more time. They’d had already lost enough time just killing one biter each: as long as they didn’t get in his way, they were none of Hinata’s concern. The man’s arms stretch out long before his flattened palm crashes through the door, which was barely even enough to slow down his momentum. His scene catches more than a couple of biters’ attention on the street, but with the way they’re spread out, Hinata can’t imagine that engaging more than four of them would even happen. Unless, of course, some of them could run.

Hinata throws his left hand onto the wrench as he draws closer to the first biter, becoming more and more tense with each step he took. _‘Tell the devil that your death came quickly for me.’_ He tries not to grin as he keeps his tongue stuck deep in his mouth, prepared for the worst that was about to shower down on his face. _‘... and that his name was Shouyou.’_

The redhead throws the wrench into position behind his head, forcing down the urge to scream out the words twist in his head; ‘ _...because we are_ not _the ones dying today.’_

And, with the holding of his breath, Hinata rakes the bulbous end of the wrench across the biter’s temple. He didn’t stop to see the outturn, but he knew quite well his damage from the blood that seeped from his weapon and splattered on his face.

Once again, Hinata’s on the move, and once again, he pulls the same vicious attack, bashing the biter’s head in from the side. By the time he’s done, his wrench would leave a wet trail of blood and gore on the path that he treads on.

He avoids the advancing few biters, allowing Natsu to take care of a couple before they whip around the corner of the building. Fuck, there were more, close, too- but the two were closer. He was so damn close. Exhaustion tugged at his legs and at his lungs, made his arms feel heavier and his sore muscles numb and hot, but adrenaline made up for what Hinata lacked in the moment. The sweet relief of accomplishment tainting his bodily functions, his determination outweighed his physical drain.

For just a split second, Hinata’s left hand pats around his pocket until it snags the contents inside, and he whips out the card to the hotel. He doesn’t take the time to look at it. _‘This should still work for the back door, right? As long as I’ve got the key card?’_

The man comes to a stuttering halt as he’s greeted by glass doors, unsullied and intact from the bombing’s overpowering reign. He whips his head back around to see biters still charging at them, saliva leaking profusely from their mouths. _‘Shit,’_ is what Hinata thinks, shoving the card to its slot then whipping it back out. When the doors don’t make a sound, Hinata begins desperately tugging at their handles. “Uh- _Shouyou??!”_ Natsu panics next to him, back urgently pressed into his side. The doors don’t budge. _“Shit!!”_

He flips the card around and puts it back in, anxiety rattling his hands as he hears the biters drawing closer and closer, and then retracts it from its place.

There’s a faint clicking sound.

_“Go, go, go-“_

The two slide through the door as soon as a crack is presented to them, the weight of those who followed giving them not a moment to spare as the doors slam behind them; _“fuck!”_

Flinging onto all fours, Hinata hears the sound of fists weakly pounding against the glass and muffled howls behind him while a gag escapes his throat, choking on the air that he’d been well deprived of. Next to him, Natsu plants upright on the wall, just as shaken as he was. _They’d made it._ Holy fuck, they’d made it.

Hinata’s entire body shudders trying to suppress the urge to vomit, but a grin is present on his face as he turns around to glare down those biters smearing bits of their own flesh into the dusty windows, distorting their frames behind mottled glass.

 _“Never again,”_ comments Natsu, and Hinata flips the mob off with an ugly, wheezy laugh. “Eat shit, biter motherfuckers. Kiss the glass for me.” _They were inside._

Danger didn’t stop here, but they were safe for the time being. A point of no return.

Hinata clambers back to his feet with a helping hand from Natsu, who gives him a sharp clap on the back upon his rise. For an unrealistically long moment, the urge to flaunt his success overwhelms Hinata, thoughts of whipping out his dick out just to mock them herding in like a flood but he doesn’t. Instead, his arms just snake over his head, catching his breath and drinking out of his canteen with his pinky up for all the world to see. For all that the guy cared, he could take all the time in the world- but, this battle wasn’t over for them. Dragging thoughts still corrupted Hinata’s mind, a gentle push onwards. They needed to get this job done as quickly as possible, because who knows how long four bags of jerky would hold off a crowd of thirty or more. He takes a long, final drink between gasping heaves, gives the biters one last snarky look, then nods to Natsu, who takes the hint.

Their runs are more of a slow jog now, to keep things quiet and stamina stored up. No point in sprinting now, anyways. The ginger pads down the short hallway, grateful that it didn’t connect directly to the main lobby, and heads down the stretch of the hall towards the staircase. He pulls out their keycard, straining his ears in hopes that they could make up for his eyes as he skims over what it read. _‘Room 261...’_

 _‘This place is fucking huge. Damn hotels.’_ Hinata doesn’t quite recall which floor they’d bunkered down on, but it was either second or third, from both memory and process of elimination. Damn it.

Natsu seems to pick up on this, asking: “you have any idea where the hell you're going?”

Hinata responds with “not a clue.”

In no time, they’re on the second floor, the man’s fingertips twitching around the base of his bludgeon. Shoulder first, Hinata peeps around the doorway, arm wrapped boldly around his body, ready to strike if needed. But, with the relaxing of muscles, he realizes that there weren’t any biters in this hall, either.

“This is going _way_ too fucking well,” Hinata utters with an uneasy undertone, Natsu pushes past him. _“Don’t jinx us,”_ she whispers back.

A final glance cast behind him, Hinata then trots after her, his guard remaining high and his pace quiet even though the hall was visibly empty. The guy thinks that he can hear scrabbling in a room or two, but that doesn’t particularly worry him. If there were biters, they’d be trapped inside their rooms… right? _‘As long as they’re not in my way, I’m fine.’_

Taking lengthy strides, Hinata’s eyes skim over the numbers. 235, 237…

Restlessness makes his body lurch with every other step- this can’t be healthy. 51, 253…

“ _Shou_ ,” Natsu beckons. _‘261.’_

Hinata pauses at the door, taking in shaky breaths as Natsu readied herself to swing. He presses his fingers to his lips, smiling for all of God to see. “Oh my god.”

“Just open the damn door, Niichan.”

“Sheesh, can’t a guy have some sentimentality...?”

“Save it for when we know nothing will go wrong.” Yeah, that was fair. Maybe he did need Natsu on this venture.

Under a quick examination, Hinata flips the card around it before placing it in, and the red light above the door’s handle turns green with a small click. Their very few belongings, their very few things from home, were about to belong to him again. He and Kenma and Natsu.

The door swings open wide, carrying with it a clean smell, untouched by the outside world and holding with it the slightest tinge of familiarity. It was like opening up a time capsule for the two, one from a world that had been taken so greedily from them, not even all that long ago yet it felt like _years_. The space was exactly how they’d left it, tidied and organized, other than the bedsheets that Hinata had ruffled when he’d first gotten there and flopped down onto the bed. And…

Of course, their bags, their stuff. The things that belonged to them, their home away from home. Hinata supremes shudders when he sees them; they were still there, right where they’d left them. “I did it, Kenma.”

“I actually did it.”

Natsu doesn’t criticize his monologuing, this time.

Reality sets in fast- everything was _right here_ ; everything he’d risked had been worth it in the end. Never thought he’d be this damn happy over his own baggy clothing.

Hinata collapses next to them and rips open his own bag, warmth and recognition hitting him as he rummages through his possessions; his shirts, his shitty stick of deodorant that hardly even worked, his old camera. Hinata feels his eyes dampen, knowing that he might’ve never seen these again. Even if he’d waited for just another day or two, his stuff could’ve been taken, or something might’ve been flawed in his plan. Maybe there would’ve been more biters if he would’ve gone yesterday or tomorrow. Hinata rubs the sand out of his increasingly wetting eyes. “I just wanna go _home,”_ he sighs out loud, his lips threatening to quiver just thinking about it.

And that’s when a flicker of movement catches his eye; from out the window.

The ginger’s head rises up slowly, searching. His eyes strain as he looks out, scanning on the tops of the buildings. He doesn’t see anything again; no indication of movement anywhere, not even biters. _Huh_. He could’ve sworn he saw another…

Hinata rubs at his eyes again. Must’ve been the tears, damn it. He zips up his bag again, not bothering to organize what he’d practically ruined, and turns on his heels.

“Oh shit-“

And standing in the doorway was a single biter staring back at him. Hinata falls back, a scream caught in the throat, backpedaling and tripping over his own feet as the biter lets out a hiss of interest. Shit, had he not shut the fucking door? Had he really not-

_“Shouyou!!!”_

Hinata screams as it takes a lunging few steps towards him, his hands flaring out in search for his wrench, where the fuck-

Natsu barrels info it from the side, as well unarmed, and after a hard knock against the wall it turns its attention towards her, screeching. The redhead scrambles backwards, panicking, until his hand digs deep into his pocket, retrieving his knife. Hinata flicks it open, snarling back like a cornered animal- of course, the biter doesn’t give a shit. He rushes at it from behind and the sweet texture of splitting skin awakens beneath his palms as the knife embeds itself into the biter’s scalp, flesh spitting out thick, congested blood in response. There’s a shriek as Hinata pummels it to the floor, putting another deep stab into the back of its. The biter’s mouth falls open in shock, almost like this thing knew that it was dying- could feel its wandering spirit being set free.

Hinata could care less.

He retracts the knife from the biter’s skull, grunting, then scrambles to his feet. Getting out of here was the only thing he was thinking about- that and how loud he’d screamed. “You okay??” Hinata asks, approaching the hallway.

“I’m fine,” huffs Natsu, clearly shaken up by the urgency in which she gathers their things, “we gotta get the hell out of here before-“

Hinata gasps and slams the door shut behind him, back pinned against the wall. No. Oh _hell_ no.

There’s a hard pounding on the door just seconds after he scrambles away from it and it urges him to begin backing up, _“you’re shitting me.”_ Hinata’s breath was quickening by the second, his throat clamping up in the worst fucking way, like he was about to break down and cry. Dear God, there were so fucking many- if they weren’t all compressed in a hallway, the two might’ve just been able to deal with it, but in that kind of environment- no way. The mob was beginning to press at the door, groaning in protest and pounding on it, begging to get in in the most biter-way possible. Hinata shakes, running a hand through his hair and dropping the bags at his feet as Natsu came to his side. _“What the hell do we do???”_

He considers moving furniture in front of the door, but honestly, what good would that do for them? It would only trap him in here and hold off so many biters for so long. Fuck; alright. Save that one as a last resort plan. _‘Come on, Shouyou. What would Kenma have me do?’_

Hinata looks around the room, searching for something he could use for a weapon instead of his wrench- maybe something would last him longer, or maybe he could use his jerky as bait and put it in some corner then hide and pray that the biters wouldn’t find him as they walked in- then he could run out. But shit, how would he manage to get their bags out of here? That’s a lot of extra strain on his body. _‘What would Kenma do?’_

The pounding gets increasingly violent as he assumes more biters had appeared, following in the original fews’ lead. He pulls on his hair in stress, now there was really no fighting his way out. _‘What would Kenma do??!’_

Natsu shakes next to him. “We’re gonna fucking die in here.”

Hinata pauses, his frayed nerves suddenly calming as his eyes focus down on a patch of sunlight reflecting off of blood from the biter’s dead body.

Of course. Fucking idiot.

Hinata’s head sweeps towards the window, gasping as if it had never been there before. And it hadn’t, technically- _not as an opportunity._ He gathers up his things, muttering uneasy curses beneath his breath, looking out the glass and judging its distance from the ground. Shit; he’s only two stories up and even still, that’s a long-ass drop. Stupid hotel; they didn’t even deserve wasting their money on this piece of junk, anyways. But Hinata’s sure he’s made jumps like these before, plenty of them being much more dangerous than just a simple drop to the ground. He was much better off spraining an ankle out there than he was trapped in here; this tiny room with a horde of biters desperate to get inside. There wasn’t even a second thought. “Shit, okay; here we go.”

He pulls back the curtains all the way and goes for the lock on the frame only to have it be jammed. Hinata rams his wrench at it the best he could from the angle he was presented, but couldn’t even get it to budge. “Dammit. What the fuck-“

The ginger’s interrupted by the sound of a door hinge snapping beneath pressure, and suddenly the banging becomes even louder as the top hinge bursts and allows the door to become awkward and weak. “Okay, time’s up-“

Hinata bashes the wrench through the window, not even giving the time to clear the glass all the way out before he’s dropping bags down, hoping that their more precious valuables were cushioned well enough by clothing to not shatter on impact.

His eyes meet Natsu’s as he gestures faintly to the glass. _“Ladies first,”_ he motions with a cocky, out of breath grin.

 _“Fuck you.”_ Natsu doesn’t hesitate.

Hinata watches her, careful as she could be with her limited amount of time, before she drops to the ground. She lands in an awkward half-squat that sends her back-pedaling a few steps, looking painful but not anything broken. That made Hinata feel way better about his own descent.

That’s when the final hinge snaps and the muffled sounds of the biters become clear and hysterically audible. Fuck, they’re through. They’ve gotten through-

In a fraction of a second, Hinata swings half his body over, avoiding glass shards. And as he does so he finds himself face to face with horrible, browning teeth and a bloated, multicolored face; reaching out at him, ready to sink those browning teeth into his undeserving flesh-

Hinata lets go much too early to save his own skin.

Well, _most_ of his skin.

Overwhelming pain rips up through his forearm and Hinata emits a choked half of a scream while he plummets downwards, off-balance and completely lost to what was even happening, listening to bits of glass rain down with him behind the wind in his ears. He’s falling down with no sense of what had just happened, no sense of direction, the question of why he was hurting left unanswered as he fell down, down, _down…_

_“Shouyou!!!!”_

Hinata’s side hits the concrete with a hard crack, the air in his lungs being pulverized out of him. In that instant, Hinata goes still before he even takes his first conscious breath on the ground.

  
  


For the first time since the days of the bombings, Kageyama’s eyes flit towards the sound of screaming because that hadn’t been a lurker screaming. That scream was still _human._

_‘Shit.’_

Kageyama whips around into the alleyway he’d just been through, glock in hand, because damn, that was _loud_. Screams like that only came from someone who was in either in pain or in deep shit. Or both. _Probably both._

He flies through the alleyway, paying close attention for any more screams or sounds remotely human; but there are none. Nothing but the sound of his own footsteps echoing off the sides of buildings. He flies into the clearing, feet hitting the smooth pavement of a road once used, his gun tight at his chest and ready to whip out and shoot at anything, practically trained by sight. But there weren’t any lurkers; at least none near him.

The man’s eyes flit over to where the movement was. Lurkers, bunches of them, in one collective spot in front of a hotel. Not scattered around like they usually were; it was the strangest thing Kageyama had ever seen. _‘Must’ve caught someone trying to go in,’_ he thinks, and realizes that was probably what the scream had been in the first place. Damn, what a shameful fate.

But then he notices that not all of the lurkers were in that collective spot. There were a few others, five or six, straying their way around the side of the building; all headed in the same direction. If the lurkers already had food, then why would they…

_“Niichan!!!”_

Kageyama freezes when his trailing eyes catch a body lying in their midst, surrounded by several bags and a gruesome pool of blood he can make out from his position even a couple of blocks away. He can't help but bring a hand to his mouth. _‘Holy fucking shit.’_

He examines the area around him, notices the broken window two stories up and frowns. That kid had gotten so damn far, only to die falling out the window? ‘That’s terrible,’ is what Kageyama wants to think, but the girl still tugging desperately at his body is what upset him, a guiding of the heart with the moral compass. She was being far too loud.

 _‘It’s none of my concern.’_ Really, Kageyama should just be waiting for those monsters to shred the two of them, take their shit, _‘maybe that’d make Nishinoya-san happy.’_ After all, you know what they say, a dead man’s treasure is another man’s ticket to surviving the fucking apocalypse. But, that’s not the type of guy Kageyama was, no matter how much he wanted to be. Kageyama watched the lurkers begin to encircle her and his lip curls before a deep sigh escapes his lips. _“Goddamnit.”_

With the popping of bullets, Kageyama sends more than a few to the ground as he approaches, ignoring the fact that he was claiming the other’s attention because it didn’t matter; soon enough they’d be gone and out of there. The girl shrinks with her hand over her head at the sound, as if he were going to shoot her too.

As soon as all the nearby lurkers are down, Kageyama breaks into a sprint, coming to realize that not all these bodies were the ones that he had just killed. Unlike his much more mild bullet holes, these lurkers have chunks of their heads and faces torn off. These bodies- _were these all those kids’ doing?_ Sheesh, just how far did they go to get into that place…?

Kageyama skids to a halt, in front of her, “what the hell happened??”

She seems shocked to see him there, like other survivors were a myth. “My- my brother,” she stammers through her crying, _“there were biters- he fell-“_

Kageyama could see that.

“Was he bitten?”

_“No- never-“_

Kageyama doesn’t like staring down at the body, but he can’t help it with it just laying there. The guy was so small and lean, covered in days old scars and bruises; he’d been in rough conditions before he died. Not starving, but finding food seemed a little laborious, judging not only his weight but the girl’s as well. It amazed Kageyama that he actually made it into that building. He also comes to realize that the kid didn’t actually crack his skull open from falling out the window, but the culprit being a chunk of glass which had torn open his forearm until it got loose, almost all the way up to his wrist. Damn. And he looked so peaceful, too- his eyes closed shut, his body in almost perfect condition otherwise…

A ripple of shock washes over him, making sure he wasn’t imagining things when he saw his chest heave once, then twice. The guy was breathing. _The guy was still alive._

“Holy shit- _hello??”_ asks Kageyama, as if he were expecting a response. Overwhelmed by shock, it takes the guy a good few seconds before collapsing onto his knees, caressing the guy gently in his lap. And sure enough, upon the faintest of pressure to his wrist, there’s still a pulse. The scent of blood was nearly devastating and he was knocked clean out, but oh my god, this guy had survived that fall.

Kageyama shrinks down and rips into the nearby duffle bags. The girl just stares, bewildered. “What’re you-“

Shaking his head vigorously, Kageyama comments: _“cover me.”_ But he knows damn well she doesn’t do much more than watch him all bug-eyed as Kageyama tears open the bags only to find… clothes. Like, clothes and all these little miscellaneous items, toothbrushes and a camera and a half-empty bottle of cola that wasn’t even cold-

 _Clothes would do_. At the very least they were _clean,_ cleaner and bigger than anything Kageyama had on him.

Kageyama looks behind him, cursing, shooting another few lurkers charging at them as he yanked a random shirt from the bag. “Damn it- hope you weren’t attached to this shirt, bud.”

The sound of the fabric tearing seems to summon more lurkers- he could hear them, getting all riled up again- there must be more coming to see them. Time was running thin.

Kageyama loops the article a good few times around the ginger’s wounded arm as tightly as he believes would fit, making for a makeshift bandage and the man stays unconscious the entire time, not even a dip in his breathing as the shirt pressed into his wound- that wasn’t a good sign. Kageyama wasn’t even sure the man hadn’t busted a _vein_ \- he very well may be dead by the time Kageyama got him back. He wipes the thin layer of blood from out of the guy’s nose and feels just a faint blow of heat cross over his fingertips. Right now, the guy was alive. Kageyama found it hard to ignore that.

Tensing when he hears lurkers, Kageyama pops another few bullets into the skulls of the dead just to see them being replaced by those in the distance. An urgent reminder that shit- _they gotta go._

 _“Can you carry these?”_ The man roses the duffle bags near her feet, pockets his gun and scoops the ginger up; yeah, no way her scrawny body could carry both of those bags without collapsing sooner or later. He slides one of them awkwardly around his shoulder before arising with both their weights, gritting his teeth under an already present strain. Kageyama wasn’t entirely sure how they were going to make it out of here with their body parts intact; Kageyama was now slowed down by nearly another one sixty in weight with no easy way of defending himself. He was sure with the girl’s delirious ass he’d have to take breaks in between now and then, too, to gather their strength. Not to mention that all this blood would have lurkers crawling out from miles away. _‘What the fuck am I doing?’_ Is what Kageyama echoes, _‘by the time I get home, this guy is going to bleed out...’_

But these negative thoughts don’t slow Kageyama down in the slightest. He doesn’t dare drop another living human onto the road, doesn’t dare let his end be to the hands of those fucking _creatures_. Never would he let himself, because by doing that, you’re no better than the lurkers themselves. Inhuman. Demons. _Disgusting._

The girl looks at him with the same shock that had remained in her glassy eyes since they’d first met. _“Let’s get out of here, kid.”_

If he had to run just to save this one random guy’s life; fuck, he’d run until his heart stopped beating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys enjoyed that first chapter! christ, and to think 22k words is one chapter, yikes. 
> 
> i cant say when the second chapter will be out, but expect it to be of a decent time. it is being remodeled, but it’s beta form already reaches up to thirty chapters, so i already have plenty of material to work with.
> 
> if youre further intrigued, id suggest check out my art account on instagram [[@ratpudz]] if it isnt where you came from- more than likely you will be kept up to date on the fic much better there and i literally have brainrot from my own shit. again, thanks so much for reading, it means the world to me <3


	2. flightless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hinata survives with (most of) his skin intact, meets the inhabitants of the base that rescued him, and comes face to face with stone-cold Kageyama for the very first time. It doesn’t end too well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had a hell of a time getting this to upload what the fuck anyways
> 
> once again asking you to follow my instagram [@ratpudz] if its not where you spawned from because 1. youll get more frequent updates on this fic there and 2. i draw for it a lot i promise my art style is cool PLEASE fol
> 
> i can’t lie, this chapter runs SO SLOW in comparison to the rest of them, and on top of that it feels a little lacking to me because i basically just edited the text from 2018 instead of completely rewriting it like i did ch1 BUT this chapter does hold some pretty essential information so just. bear with me here i promise it all starts escalating at chapter three.
> 
> also beware of spelling errors; i took more time to revise this one than ch1 but im also stupid so. love yall, appreciate the support it got for only having one fat ass chapter out <3

_Hinata’s always been viewed as this open, can’t-close-his-mouth kind of guy. Sweet like candy, an angel with the tongue of the devil- that’s how newcomers interpreted him._

_Upon getting to know him, Hinata is all about his own opinions and hobbies, and, believe it or not, once you get closer to him, he’s still all about his own opinions and hobbies- let’s do this and let's do that. Hinata doesn’t change a whole lot._

_In fact, Hinata doesn’t change at all unless you really get to know him._

_So, underneath the hard lights of the tattoo parlor, when that artist had asked him on that day, “any reason in particular you’re getting a tattoo, Hinata-san?” Kenma felt himself freezing up. Because this moment was one of those occasions; those rare, relatively annual questions where the blonde wasn’t entirely sure how Hinata Shouyou, the most extroverted person he’s ever met and the person he’d grown the closest to in his life, would respond._

_At first, Hinata would choke. “Um,” he begins, and it becomes blatantly evident that Hinata had not prepared himself for that question. Kenma stares back, stares the man down in a way that he can only begin to think as provocative from his position a few feet away, a tight grip on the phone in his hand._

_“Not many people get ‘em, you know, especially on the arms- body art could get you banned from certain professions, public areas…” they were both well aware of that, but this- this stood for something far more important. Hinata won’t look at anything but the ground, and it makes Kenma wonder: ‘would Hinata actually sacrifice that much information to a complete stranger?’_

_No, he wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t. A lot of people seeking attention would have, but… not Shouyou._

_“Not particularly,” Hinata says cooly, a quick flitting of the eyelids as he responded to the casual conversation, “it’s more just a celebratory thing, matching tattoos, bound friendship.”_

_Their artist just laughs and Kenma blinks over how well Hinata had managed to pull that all off, “awful bold of you two; I like that. Friendship necklaces would’ve been a hell of a lot cheaper, though.”_

_Hinata laughs at this and, giving him credit, it was the most real laugh that the guy could muster- Kenma could see through that sugarcoated chuckle any day. Kenma could see the dark, twisted, bitter side to that sweet laughter of his, underlying tones of fear- the laugh that could hide a hundred emotions and a thousand more words._

_The biggest extrovert that Kenma knew could hide himself like a bitch._

_“Alright, I’m almost done here,” the tattoo artist motions, “I know it’s a really simple tattoo, but if you need any touch-ups after that baby heals up, just give me a ring, okay?”_

_“Ah, thank you very much.”_

_Kenma circles around to the redhead’s left side; he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been waiting to see the final product after his first few guilty glances. He finds his eyes widening as the tattoo spreads out in its full glory with the angle which he approached it at; it looked exactly like the reference image they’d picked out._

_A simple feather tattoo lines the inside of Hinata’s arm, stretching at a good length from just beneath the cuff of his wrist to the crease of his elbow, surrounded by swollen and red skin beneath jet black ink. A solid shape minus the very minimalistic details they’d left in, ultimately the process had taken much less time than Kenma had expected, but it blew his expectations out of the water. Of course, the thing was still damp, and Hinata’s pale skin really reflected just how much tattoos hurt afterward, but already, Kenma was in love. This would be his reminder, Hinata’s reminder and Kenma’s too. “It looks amazing,” mutters Hinata, and Kenma nods after him._

_“I sure hope it does,” says the artist, “now, Kenma, you want the exact same thing but mirrored?”_

_Kenma hardly even takes a moment’s hesitation. “Yes please,” he confirms, eyeing the ink. “On the left arm, please.”_

_‘Natsu… Kenma?’_

Hinata’s eyes flutter open, gently- only to snap back closed just seconds after.

_‘Fuck.’_

The world, it was bright- _horribly bright,_ creating a strain in his eyes that awoke an increasingly sharpening pain in his skull.

_Where…?_

Even _breathing_ feels unnatural to Hinata; it takes him a moment to regain recognition of his muscles and valves. Experimentally, the redhead flexes his legs and his shoulders, coming to find that they feel… _unused._ Flimsy, sore, like his bones are made of glass, trapped in a swollen and stiff outer shell.

_‘Where am I? What happened??’_

Hinata can’t say he recalls much. He remembers quite well his mission, his journey to get his stuff back- but after he broke that window, it all went fuzzy. Hinata remembers falling, falling down; the terrible pain that shot up the inside of his arm. Hinata remembers everything, minus what had happened to him after that fall...

Was he dead? _That_ wouldn’t be a stretch. There was only one thing that Hinata knew for sure about this scenario, and it was that he hurt like a _bitch._

His tongue falls from the roof of his mouth with the tiniest of pops as he tries to speak, only to find that his mouth was horribly dry, a thick layer of mucus acting as a substitute for his saliva; he can literally taste just how bad his breath is. A croak manages to escape him upon further effort, trying to find his lost voice. _“Kenma…”_

“Hey- _that kid’s awake again!!”_

For just a moment’s time, the sound of someone else’s voice comforts Hinata; _he was surrounded by people, that was good._ But then the guy comes to realize that this isn’t his old life, that this was the apocalypse and wherever he was was no damn hospital or home bed. That person- that was a voice Hinata most certainly did _not_ recognize.

_‘Shit.’_

As his awareness accumulates, Hinata finds himself quickly struck by a panic that overwhelms him in mere seconds. His body reacts on its own, doing its best to get him into a defensive stance, his arm flinging upright an attempt to flex his muscles-

Instantaneously Hinata screams, his lungs suddenly breaking through their tight outer casing while an unexpected pain rips through his arm. Ah, there’s his voice.

The redhead chokes on coughs afterward, irritation from his cry caught in his scratchy throat, but his body wasn’t done yet. A much worse pain explodes in his side afterward and Hinata finds himself fidgeting to escape its wrath, eventually collapsing back down onto one side while he gulps like he’s never had air before in his life. “Woah, man, take it easy-”

Pausing, Hinata’s eyes flit over to that voice. His entire body feels heavy, and everything was fading from that dull feeling into a harsh, pounding pain- _but he was definitely awake now._ He sees a shape among those bright lights, a silhouette if you will, that _yeah-_ Hinata most definitely did _not_ recognize. The redhead had all these questions that he couldn’t ask and subconsciously knew he’d have to wait for and it scared him to death; anything could happen here. _“Sugawara-san! He’s panicking!!”_

Hinata coughs so hard that he heaves, his entire body shaking and igniting in this way that felt sore- healing pain. His ribs hurt, so much so that he couldn’t _breathe._ Definitely running a fever. Hinata feels a sudden hand placed on his shoulder, urging him to sit up and it takes so much out of Hinata to shake it off that it gags him, a taut glare on his face as he looks up at the figure above him. It was another guy; small, lithe. Couldn’t have been much taller than Hinata himself, but the man’s palms drag into him nonetheless, propping him up to some degree- the best you could with a man thrashing like a wild fucking animal beneath your grasp. Hinata battles his guidance every step of the way even though his strength had been sapped to the point of near exhaustion; _“get the hell off me!!”_

“Calm down, man, we’re not going to hurt you!”

“I warned you he might not remember much with that head injury, Nishinoya. Keep him still.” Another new voice, honey-sweet, talking at a distance. _‘Another male.’_ But Hinata is too concerned about this other motherfucker trying to pin him down to even get a glance at him. Damn it, _he’s scared._ Hinata _hates_ being scared.

Hinata’s voice gives out once and then croaks just enough to be legible: _“I remember everything!!”_

“Then calm the hell down; _we saved your life, damn it!!”_

Hinata begins hacking again and the hands pressed against his chest stabilize him as he stares down at the bedsheets; _‘this isn’t the shirt I’d been wearing.’_ Pinning his own hand against his side to keep the pain in his ribs at bay, as Hinata comes to a wheezing stop, there’s suddenly a cup presented beneath him.

_‘... Water.’_

The pain doesn’t fade but his attention towards it does; and quickly, the liquid inside that styrofoam becomes Hinata’s prime focus. _“Drink,”_ one of them commands.

Didn’t have to tell him twice, his body was already becoming aware of its loss. In a fifth of a second, Hinata snatches that cup and downs its contents so quickly that it spills out the corners of his mouth and down the front of his shirt, the burn from his parched throat bringing tears to his eyes in the most satisfying way possible. _Fuck,_ that was so good. With just a few heavy gulps, through the ignorance of the pain it created in his sides, Hinata takes his first deep breath with a dampened tongue while conscious. The strain on his temples subside for just a second, and it finally coaxes Hinata into the peace he needed to finally take in his surroundings.

Not much for words come to his head, just subtle observation. It’s like- like _a home,_ organized and neat, a pale green and gray color palette coming across his vision, but it’s too compacted to be a house. He’s on a bed, he notes, a bed of white sheets and a green comforter. There’s a blacked-out tv and a vase full of fake flowers, wood and paintings complementing the colors of the room; Hinata almost gets nostalgia.

_‘This is a hotel…’_

Not his hotel, though.

Hinata’s head lolls and he wipes at his mouth, still dripping. There are IVs hooked into him, and his veins feel almost… _artificial. Hm._ The redhead takes a second to stop and stare at them, at the liquid pumping into his arm; it itched a little, but he dare not scratch it. It took Hinata a moment to realize that the IV was hooked into his right arm because his other arm was…

Hinata stares. His arm. It’s bound in clean, bloodless surgical wrap.

That arm.

_His left one._

_“You’re lucky.”_

At the voice, Hinata’s head picks up and so does his pain, resuming in its dull throb and again his heart begins to pound. Another man has appeared at the side of the bed and Hinata bristles instantly. He’s much taller than his cohort was, but still somewhat short in stature, silver hair complementing these rich brown eyes. But, upon eye contact, Hinata finds a gentle, nonthreatening gaze that eases him down- he’s beautiful.

“You’re lucky that you hadn’t fallen from any higher,” the silver-haired man comments, “it was hard enough to glue you back together the way it was...”

Hinata’s eyes flit between the two men in uncertainty; the two seemed awfully nice in a way that disturbed Hinata. He knows he certainly wouldn’t be doing all… _this_ for a stranger. The nicest Hinata would’ve done to a wounded stranger was put a bullet through their head, put them out of their misery. Whatever their intentions were with him, Hinata wasn’t letting his guard down just yet.

Maybe not ever.

_“Who are you guys…?”_

_“Sugawara,”_ the man with the silver hair greets, “Sugawara Koushi, I’m the doctor around here.” He points a thumb to the guy next to him, “and this is Nishinoya. _You remember who you are, right?_ You... took quite the fall.”

The brunette grins and Hinata dips his head in greeting. “I’m…”

The redhead pauses. “Hinata.”

Sugawara gives him an amused look. _“Just Hinata,_ eh?”

In return, Sugawara gets a harsh glare. _“You heard me.”_

At once, the amused looks on their faces fall and exchange for something of shock. “W-well, we already knew that,” Nishinoya mutters, “your sister told us. You’re lucky she was with you, you know, she was able to give us your blood type and all- you wouldn’t have survived without all those transfusions...”

Hinata’s eyes widen- _Natsu._ “My sister- _she’s here? Is she okay???”_

The guy makes sure not to get too ambitious this time as he sits up further, a hidden shine to his eyes as Nishinoya responds, “yeah, she’s fine.”

_“And Kenma???”_

Slowly, Sugawara and Nishinoya exchange glances with one another, brimming with confusion. . “Kageyama didn’t say anything about there being anyone else with you two…”

Hinata’s brows furrow. _“Who now...?”_

“Kageyama; he’s the one who rescued you.”

A slow turning point of realization dawns on Hinata with the washing of color in his face. His eyes flit back and forth between the two, confused, “and he… he _didn’t_ come back with Kenma…?”

Nishinoya shakes his head, seemingly a little more sure of himself this time. “Only you and Natsu-chan.”

Hinata’s eyes harden as they make their way onto the bed, away from eye contact. It takes him a few seconds to have the balls to say it aloud: _“That means he’s still out there.”_ An urgent quality quickly begins to taint Hinata’s voice as Nishinoya and Sugawara stare, bewildered. “My friend, _he’s still out there-_ he’s wounded, he- _he won’t make it on his own-”_

“Shit,” says Nishinoya, running his hand through his hair in a seemingly stressed manner, “Kageyama’s not here _now-”_

“Why??!” Hinata cries, blinking, “when will he be here???”

Very cautiously do the words come out of the men in front of him, hesitant in their choices. “Kageyama, he- does our errands, our dirty work,” responds Sugawara, “there’s never exactly a set time for him, he just… _comes and goes.”_ The guy gives Hinata a gentle smile. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you...?”

The redhead just stays silent under Sugawara’s attempt to lighten the subject. Sugawara just shakes his head. “And, Hinata-san, I’ll warn you right now, _that Kageyama, he’s…”_

Nishinoya finishes for him. “Not the easiest to deal with.”

_“Oh for fucks-”_ Hinata begins clawing at the tape that held his IVs in place, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed with muscles itching with a new passion to get the hell out of here, “get this shit out of me, I’ll do it _myself-”_

“Hinata, _wait!”_

Hinata hears Sugawara’s warning far too late as the pain ripples through his side, making his teeth clench and forcing a harsh grunt to escape his mouth. Hands place on his shoulders and stay there as Sugawara mentions: “you’ve got a broken ribcage, there, Hinata.”

_“Broken ribs...?”_ Hinata echoes, a sudden understanding washing over him as he takes shallow breaths.

“Yeah, fractured more or less- you’re lucky you didn’t puncture a lung with the way you fell,” grumbles Sugawara, but that doesn’t comfort Hinata in the slightest. _“You’re fucking kidding.”_ Broken ribs?? You can’t just _fix_ broken ribs- fuck, maybe it wasn’t as serious as a broken leg or arm, but there wasn’t _anything_ that could be done to help him out with a broken ribcage. Determination forces Hinata onto his feet and he grunts as he uses the nightstand next to him for leverage. “How long are they gonna take to heal???”

Sugawara shakes his head. “Four, five more weeks- but look, Hinata, that’s not all you have-”

With a bite to the lip, Hinata’s jaw clenches and he slams a fist down so hard that it rattles the floor.

_Hinata can’t leave._ No matter what his suspicions of these men were, from the sounds of it, he’d be better off in here than anywhere out there.

“... what more?”

And Sugawara just sighs, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose before a hand presses to his temple. “Well, you lost a _shit ton_ of blood, a concussion is evident- fevers have been coming and going. You’ve got about forty stitches in that arm of yours, narrowly escaped ruining the majority of your veins and tendons… you’re fortunate that we actually _had_ the materials and found you when we did. Even if you would’ve lived through all that, I’m not so sure you would’ve kept that arm on you. At least two of your ribs are broken, and you smacked your head pretty hard from that fall- somehow, that blow wasn’t bad enough to damage much considering your situation, and you managed to sleep most of the swelling off by now. You escaped the worst of it…”

Slept through a majority of a concussion…?

Sugawara presses a hand to his arm, “do you even remember the few times you woke up before this, Hinata-kun??”

Hinata just blinks. Maybe faintly… _yeah, no._ “Not a damn thing.”

_“Figured._ Delirious with fever; your temperatures were so high I wasn’t sure you’d even make it, and that’s saying a lot for the surplus of medical supplies we have. But when a guy is hardly even breathing for a week straight…”

Hinata’s eyes nearly bug out of his head, _‘wait-’_

_“A week straight?!”_ Hinata’s voice rattles his own throat and it hurts like hell trying to suppress his coughing. Sugawara just shrugs. “Six days, a week- I’m honestly surprised you’re as up and spry as you are, you’re recovering well.”

_A week._ Kenma’s been out there all by himself for _a fucking week._ Hinata sits up a little further, throat tightening from the pain in his side; he thinks of Natsu. _Surely she would’ve said something about Kenma, right?_ No way she wouldn’t have. “Where- where’s my sister,” Hinata sputters through coughs, “I need to talk to her-”

Sugawara commands Nishinoya to go fetch her along with some painkillers and the man bounds off with a bow of acknowledgment. As the door squeezes shut, Hinata looks to the other man. “Look, thank you for fixing me up,” he begins, “the lengths you guys went to just to keep me alive are crazy and all the materials you used and- I- I don’t know how I’ll ever make that up to you guys, but, _please,_ I have to get Kenma back. _Someone_ has to get him back. He’s the smartest person that I know, _but he’s hurt;_ he hasn’t even been outside yet since the bombs, Suga-san. You don’t have any way to contact Kageyama???”

“Unfortunately, no,” responds Sugawara. The way he speaks irks Hinata, as if he weren’t taking this situation seriously…

_‘No,’_ thinks Hinata, _‘he is…’_

_‘It's just that the three of us just aren’t on our own anymore. They’ve got more to worry about than just Kenma.’_

But those thoughts don’t make Hinata feel any less inferior in the situation. “I understand you’re desperate, Hinata- hell, I’d be going just as crazy if I were you. But this base… _its got a lot of clean up work to do._ Now, Kageyama is the last person to deny someone that needs help and I think you know that considering you’re up and alive right now, but you need to understand that if it's something Kageyama-kun doesn’t want to prioritize…”

The entirety of Sugawara’s face seems to fall upon his own words. “Then he _won’t.”_

Those words were hiding something condescending, something that Hinata refused to believe. “But he made the effort to save me!” cries Hinata, _“I’m_ alive!!”

“And you were just a rescue mission, not a search and rescue.”

And Hinata feels his muscles clench. He’s trapped, he’s scared, and all he wants to do is lash out at someone. Why the hell did this have to happen? Everything had been going so goddamn smoothly on that day, all up until the window…

Hinata gives Sugawara a glare, letting the guy know just how cold and calculating he was. The redhead wasn’t about to have his rank demolished by social hierarchy solely because he was new and wounded, he’d _make_ them listen to his cries for Kenma. _Insanity?_ Maybe. Hinata likes to think of it more as _desperation._ No way would he lay a finger on these people unless he was provoked, but even just hearing what he didn’t want to hear in this situation was poking the bear...

And that’s when the door suddenly creaks open, getting the two’s attention as a figure stands, open and bold in the doorway. The tension in Hinata’s brows slacken. _“Niichan...?”_

_“Natsu,”_ Hinata breathes back, the corners of his eyes beginning to sting as he sees the girl’s reaction- she must’ve been so damn scared without him, having to watch him fall out that window, instantly unconscious. How horrible, how traumatic that must’ve been. Even further so knowing that Kageyama could’ve been just thirty seconds late and their reunion wouldn’t have ever even _happened._ The girl rushes at him upon response yet plows into him gently, aware of his condition and Hinata wraps her arms around her the best he can without twisting as to save his side. “I thought you were going to _die,”_ she says, her crying revealed by the way her words squeaked. Hinata just snorts, trying his best not to let his own tears fall, “and just _leave you here?_ Who’s gonna tell you to shut the fuck up then?”

Natsu laughs in a bittersweet manner as she pulls away, allowing Nishinoya to come and place the medication down onto the nightstand along with something else, probably food and drink. The girl is… surprisingly _clean, exuberant-_ she’s been taken well care of, far better service than anything they’d been getting beforehand in this world. “How’re you… how’re you _feeling...?”_

Hinata just shrugs. “Not really one for me to answer; can’t say I’ve ever been worse, but- according to Sugawara-san, things _could be.”_

The two look to the doctor, who just smiles faintly. “Let's leave them be, Nishinoya,” says Sugawara, “assuming you’re fine with that, Hinata-kun.”

Hinata’s assuming by the way he’d demanded for his sister that Sugawara understood his case quite well. “Yeah,” Hinata responds, “I’m good.”

Nishinoya steps up to plate behind them as Sugawara makes his leave. “Just let me know when you’re doing good enough to get a feel for the place, whenever that is; I’m Tanaka-san and I would gladly show you around.”

The way Nishinoya speaks, bringing in all these new names, makes Hinata wonder just how big this place is. _Sounded_ pretty populated, to say the least, but this was Tokyo, not Miyagi. Even if a thousand people were left alive as one group in this city, they’d be outnumbered by about ten million of those who didn’t make it. _“I will,”_ responds Hinata, “thank you.”

The two exit, and Natsu turns back to her brother. “Do you feel up to walking?”

Hinata wants with all his heart to say yes, but he can’t say he feels like he does. And so, Hinata just shrugs. “I don’t know yet, maybe later, but, Natsu-”

_“Where’s Kenma…?”_

His heart skips a beat along with the falling of Natsu’s face. He grabs at her hand intently, “you said something, didn’t you??”

_“Of course,”_ she whispers back, sounding almost offended that he’d asked- so then what the hell was _that_ look for?

Sucking in air through his mouth, Hinata comes to the only conclusion he could think of: “he’s not dead, is he???”

Instantly, Natsu’s eyebrows furrow. _“No,_ ” she responds in the same tone, then shakes her head, “god, _no,_ I don’t know- _Kageyama...”_

Hinata’s breath hitches at that name, _Kageyama…_ always spoken in such an ambiguous manner. Natsu swallows before continuing: _“he tried.”_

_“Tried...?”_ echoes Hinata, getting even further on edge, “Natsu, just tell me what happened-”

“Kageyama tried to find him, but he says the lurker infestation has gotten even worse up there, that you can’t even- that there’s no way to-” the girl stops with a shallow sniffle, “he’s not going up there.”

Hinata feels his fingers curl, asking even though the answer was blatantly in front of him, _“why??!”_

“It’s too dangerous, Niichan.” Natsu gestures to the room around her, “this place, it’s packed, it’s a haven- and Kageyama’s the only one doing the dirty work around here. They lose him and they lose practically everything- and Kageyama knows that.”

Betrayal taints the sheen behind Hinata’s gaze, hurt for explanations no other than his own selfishness. His own damn sister, acting as if she valued this group more than her own; it felt like _mutiny,_ even though she justified none of Kageyama’s actions, just explained his thought process. Eyes gleaming with anger meet those without spark as Natsu wipes away her tears, “he won’t listen, Niichan.”

Hinata’s fingers ball into fists. “Then I’ll _make him_ listen.”

This seems to trigger something for the girl, “no, _you won’t-”_

“Yes, _I will,”_ Hinata reinforces, _“you know me._ If there’s anyone on the planet can get someone to listen, it’s _me.”_

“But that’s not-” Natsu shakes her head, “you make it sound like Kageyama doesn’t have a choice, Hinata, he’s been _trying-”_

“We’ve already lost too much time!” exclaims Hinata, “you know that that house wasn’t going to keep hold forever, Natsu. It’s just as dangerous to any man as it is to Kageyama; if Kenma hasn’t upped and moved out yet, he’s going to soon.”

No matter what Hinata says, the girl shakes her head- whether she’s lost hope or gained loyalty, Hinata won’t have it- _not for Kenma’s sake._ “Let me talk to him when he gets here, Natsu.”

With a blank stare, Natsu responds: “you’re gonna eat those words.”

Hinata frowns with a crooked brow. “Is this Kageyama character that big of an asshole?” He asks. Darkness falls over Natsu’s face as she gives him this snort, this sort of _“you don’t even know”_ laugh that makes uncertainty wiggle into Hinata’s chest. Certainly Kageyama wasn’t _that_ incompatible, was he? So he’s got a short temper, so what- Hinata couldn’t blame him, not like they were exactly _living lavish_ surviving off canned beans and blood, sweat, and tears. Maybe Kageyama lost someone in the same way Hinata had lost Kenma, the possibilities were next to endless, here.

Maybe Hinata could help Kageyama.

“I mean, he saved _our_ lives, didn’t he?” Hinata waits for Natsu’s expression to lift but hardly gets a spark, “trying to save Kenma’s to whatever degree- surely there’s _some_ good in him, right? He’s not a sociopath, right…??”

“That’s his problem,” Natsu says, “he’s not a bad guy, he’s a good guy with one _hell of an attitude._ The guy’s too intent on- _saving lives, drawing out his map_ than actually getting the supplies they need-”

“No one else helps him?” This bewilders Hinata; even through his little knowledge of this base, he knew it was goddamn huge. _“No,”_ responds Natsu, “I mean- the guys will travel a half a mile or so to gather what they need if they know where it is, but if they want anything fancy, it’s under _Kageyama’s request._ They call him their runner around here, he’s their most reliably unreliable errand boy.”

Hinata shakes his head. “What’s so bad about saving lives?”

“The fact that there aren’t many left to save.” The girl looks solemnly at him before sitting down on the edge next to him, careful of all the wires, “maybe there were that first month in, and yeah, he gets a couple of stragglers every now and then, but… natural selection really ran its course out there, Shou.”

“I mean, at least he’s trying…”

Hinata realizes just how much his words sound like an excuse when Natsu looks at him like he’s gone mental. _“Er- not that I disagree with you-_ I feel like he should own up to his responsibility, if anything, I agree with you, _strongly,_ it's just that…”

Cutting him off with a huff, the girl says: “it’s just that you have biased respect for him because he saved our asses- _I get it._ It’s just… no one here’s really sided with him like that, and you’ve never even met him- you’re just- you never let other people’s words get to you, Shou.”

“Judging people isn’t what I do, you know that,” replies Hinata, “it’s more like- being a prick about the way that they are until they open up to me.”

Natsu laughs again and Hinata finds relief in it, knowing he’d gotten the chance to hear it again. “It really sucks because _Kageyama..._ he seems like he totally could’ve been a good dude if he could just- _pull his head out of his ass._ He’s got the right motives but hell, not even Daichi can get the dude to listen to him.”

Hinata’s head tilts, unfamiliar name. _“Daichi?_ He some head-honcho or something?”

“Daichi Sawamura,” Natsu fills in all matter-of-factly, “and yeah, sort of. Neither Daichi nor Kageyama particularly claim the title of leader, so no one really addresses them like that- even though they’re the only two in this building that everyone knows the name of ‘cept maybe Suga-san. Dai-san’s just... a real handsome guy, strong- _he gets people to listen to him._ Along with Kageyama, apparently he kind of organized the people and gave them jobs to do in those first few hectic days; _a natural-born leader._ Not a lot of people have the mental or physical strength to put words against him.”

“Ah, I see,” replies Hinata. ‘This must be a big group then.’

“Sooo, Suga’s the doctor- is Nishinoya-san a doctor, too?”

Natsu laughs. “Oh man, that guy barely knows how to put a _bandaid on._ They just need someone watching out for you while Suga-san isn’t around, and that someone happened to be Nishinoya. There _is_ another doctor, though, Yachi-san- really, she was in college training to be a vet, but- she does the same job. And she’s super cute, tiny, blonde, voice of an angel-” Natsu gives him a sly look that Hinata returns with an unimpressed glare. “I’m sure you’ll be meeting her soon.”

“She’s not the one I’m interested in meeting,” replies Hinata, putting hard emphasis on his words and Natsu grins smugly, “do you know when Kageyama last left?”

“Knowing when he left doesn’t affect anything; his hours range between just one hour and four, Niichan.” Her head tilts and catches the little sun allowed through the curtains. “I think he knows that the base already has a surplus on supplies, so he doesn’t prioritize what he doesn’t want to do- god, you need to see this place, it’s damn near civilized.”

The man’s eyebrows crook. “You like it here?”

“Yeah,” Natsu says with ingenuous innocence, “it’s set up to be like a camp, a sanctuary- everyone gets three meals a day here, everyone’s welcome…” she makes eye contact with her brother and seems to understand. “They’re good people, Shouyou, they are. You need to give them a chance.”

“I’ll give them a chance once I get Kenma back,” Hinata says, and to his surprise, he gets a scoff in return. “Shouyou, they’re doing everything they can-”

“That doesn’t matter, whether or not they’re giving their all,” snaps Hinata, “I’m not blaming them for any of this, I’m just speaking my mind. This base isn’t my priority; had I woke up fine, I would’ve been gone by now.”

“Well, I can assure you that even if Kageyama’s a douche, he’s trying his damndest.” Her eyes trail off. “Hell, he’s probably out there _right now,_ looking for him. Whatever he can do that gives him an excuse to fuck around.”

And if there were any words that could make Hinata change his mind about Kageyama, _any words at all,_ Natsu’s next move would solidify his actions forever. “He saved our bags, too.”

“Our bags…?”

Tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes of which the man struggles to contain as Natsu pulls out two very familiar duffle bags from out of the corner. Again, never would’ve imagined himself getting this emotional over a pair of goddamn duffle bags. The potential fruitlessness of this venture is what Hinata had feared so much, but now, everything he’d worked for so damn hard was _here._

Well, everything except for Kenma, he supposed.

“We’re damn lucky Kageyama-san showed up,” comments Natsu, “if you’re gonna go be a dick to him, the very least you can do is tell him _thank you.”_

“Kageyama…”

And at that moment, Hinata gets an idea- _rather stupid idea,_ if you will, but wasn’t his first and nor would it be his last. And the longer he lets himself sit and ponder about it, the dumber his idea gets. You’d think that, y’know, considering his last plan had gone to absolute shit, he’d be a little more cautious about how he devised them- but he doesn’t, and his ideas get even dumber.

“Ahh, I know that look,” Natsu says, _“what’re you thinking about, Shouyou…?”_

Pausing to look down at his hands all dried out and soured, riddled with scars and calluses new to his skin, Hinata wonders: _‘what’s the point of letting them grow soft now?’_

This place was a haven, a sanctuary- the final offer to a humane and sanitary life in a world so cold, and they’d just given Hinata the key. Yet, Hinata wouldn’t accept it. _‘I’m not accepting it.’_

Because Hinata? Hinata’s found a calling in this world. Now sure, this world was a bitch, and some of the situations he got himself in? _Even more so._ But _why,_ after two long weeks of adapting to it, _would Hinata abandon the rush of adrenaline he got from dropping fifteen feet in the air...?_ Why would he abandon the feeling he got when he raked his weapon across the face of a biter, the feeling of his heart beating so loud in his chest its rhythm became all his ears knew...?

Hinata treated this world as if it were an addiction, and he knew quite well he’d been hooked- those rooftops, _they screamed his name._ This apocalypse stimulated feelings that would’ve sent him to jail back in civilization, a newfound appetite for dancing in between the fingers of death’s massive hand. A lust for running, for falling, for risking his own life just to save another’s...

_A lust for freedom._

Hinata’s eyes shine a little too brightly for one who’d just awoken from a week-long headache. “I’ve got a plan.”

Natsu’s eyelids just halve, unimpressed. _“Another one…?”_

“Fucks sake.”

If Tokyo weren’t so damn forlorn, Kageyama might’ve just had it in him to call these streets serene.

Chimes pick up in the distance, yet another pleasant reminder of the wind’s presence as it buffers through his hair and his skin. From atop a small, natural slope he stands, feet planted on the car he’d clambered on top of to watch the passing crowd just a few hundred feet away. “What’s there gotta be so many of you for, huh...?”

Kageyama knows where he is on his map; he’s been along these same streets at least a hundred times in pursuit of the same damn person. But no matter what time of day he came in from, no matter what approach he took to this area, lurkers _swamped it._ Kageyama can’t be for sure, but he’s almost certain it’s the same damn horde every time, wandering around in its circle however many miles long. There wasn’t any way to keep searching this place and Kageyama knew that- yet, he still _tried._ Still came to observe, at least- maybe he’d learn a thing or two about lurker behavior. As if he were smart enough to notice anything other than them treading in circles.

_‘You’d think they’d be harmless,’_ Kageyama notes dryly, _‘they’re hardly more than rotting flesh at this point. It’s amazing that they’re even standing, let alone that they can overpower a healthy human being like they’re nothing…’_

One of the seven wonders of the world, he supposed. Goddamn lurkers.

Kageyama scoffs at them and hops off his car, hoping that if he couldn’t retrieve Kenma, he could at least grab a thing or two from a nearby house.

The man can tell that the lack of maintenance and the destruction from the bombs was getting to this place already- many houses were already beginning to look unstable. Curse the government’s whole infrastructure policy, curse society’s pressure to keep the building industry in proper health- Kageyama could guarantee that in about ten years, all that would be left standing of Tokyo was its massive skyscrapers and pillars.

With the grabbing of his knives, Kageyama pushes a door open with a creak- particles fall from the ceiling, it looks like it’s been years into the apocalypse already. No faces out and greet him, but that doesn’t mean Kageyama lets down his guard, grabbing at the straps of his bag and rubbing them as a coping mechanism for his own anxiety. Things were scary enough when they were loud, but _silence?_ A hell of a lot scarier.

Once he ensures nothing was about to out and grab him, Kageyama moseys around like there isn’t a fuck left to give in the world, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck where sweat had built up so thick he had to rub at it twice just to dry it. This place, he comes to register, had been a home to someone once. And it looks like whoever once lived here had picked the place dry; shelves where trinkets obviously used to lay were now barren and housing dust. Kageyama’s grip on his knife loosens to that thought, his assumption of being alone becoming a bit more plausible.

Kageyama had never been one to value ornamentation, so the mere sight of all these shelves picked clean made the man sneer, wondering if they were dead from the lack of supplies they could carry. Never in his life had Kageyama had any valuables like the rest of the planet seemed to, never had a favorite shirt or countless pictures of himself with family and friends; whatever got Kageyama by, he was content with...

So, when those bombs hit, Kageyama felt as if he were the only man in Tokyo prepared for this shit. Not like he’d been holding out for one, he wasn’t a damn psychopath, but everyone seemed so damn _small_ on the day of the Panic as they cowered in one another’s arms, clinging to denial. Kageyama had been the only one who wasn’t crying or heart-sick on that day because Kageyama _hadn’t had anything to lose._ He _still_ didn’t have anything to lose. If he died out here, no matter what his death was, no one would mourn him. In turn, if they all died, Kageyama wouldn’t mourn them, either. Especially in the apocalypse, death is a part of life, and life is shit but it moves the fuck on.

_Insanity?_ Maybe. Kageyama likes to think of it more as _indifference._

Kageyama finds a few things lying around; a couple of canned things, some water- nothing they didn’t already have an excess of. _‘Still vital, nonetheless.’_ He dared not open the fridge, though- from the smell of it, everything had rotted and thensome; losing his lunch for the sake of someone else’s wasn’t worth it in his opinion. Curling his lip, Kageyama avoids it, then takes a couple of kitchen knives as a replacement before he decides that not a whole lot was left to be seen down here.

One placement of the footing is all it took for the stairs to groan in protest, making Kageyama cautious. He would place only one foot down at a time, testing his own weight, padding and prodding before eventually placing weight. _‘Better safe than sorry.’_ He makes it up that flight despite his concern, though, eyes squinting through a light in an unfamiliar place. A hole in the ceiling about half the size of his body- _yikes._ Could we enter just one building without feeling like we’re in imminent danger, please?

But that hole- it provides him more than just light. It provides Kageyama sound, sounds that damn near immediately get Kageyama’s face to shrivel in confusion. The horde, it had grown louder, which could only really mean…

Kageyama’s eyes flutter around wildly before spotting a window, to which he flings himself to nearly immediately. The lurkers- they hadn’t smothered him yet, but they’d gotten closer, _much too damn close._ His eyes widen as he realizes that the group had dispersed and widened up a bit, covering more ground that could very easily swamp Kageyama if he were in here for much longer.

The man’s teeth grit. “Shit.”

From up here, he could see what he was up against from a different angle. Thousands of them- hell, _hundreds of thousands_ was a number that Kageyama wouldn’t even claim as a stretch. It pained him a little to think, but the truth was… if this was Kenma’s residence, no man could survive in that place for long. If Kenma hadn’t upped and moved by now, he had been lost to the horde.

The lurkers snarl and it ignites fear deep within his body. Kageyama had to get the hell out of here, too, if he didn’t want to share that fate.

Flying down the stairs at his top speed, even his own physical preparation isn’t enough for him to expect what he gets once he crashes out the door. The lurker in front of him hisses in protest as Kageyama slams into its chest, hearing its teeth snap next to his ears as it stumbles back into the car- _“shit!”_

After a quick rebound, the creature lurches at Kageyama again and this time Kageyama’s ready- a little _too_ ready. He drives his blade firm into the lurker’s forehead with all his might, consequently sending it flying back into the car, where its head slams through the window and shatters it. Immediately, the car’s alarm blares, and Kageyama feels the tension inside his body build with a scream that he refused to let out- as if it mattered with all the commotion he’d already made.

About a thousand heads turn in Kageyama’s direction, groans beginning to amplify with glee.

Kageyama meets their gazes with a crazed fear shading his irises a lighter color, dragging the lurker’s body out of the car. It’s deadened skin catches the glass and oozes black blood, nearly bringing tears to Kageyama’s eyes as his hands wrap around his knife’s hilt. It gives only a few seconds worth of resistance but it’s those few seconds worth that gives the lurkers their time and Kageyama his anxiety. Footsteps begin echoing off the sides of the buildings as the black wave approaches him; _they could smell him by now._

As the knife pulls from the lurker’s head, Kageyama’s already on the run, almost tripping over his own feet as he dodges the lone lurkers who had strayed away from the pack. He hated everything about this situation, but like fuck was he ever coming back here, and he didn’t regret it, either. Finding a way around the horde not only took too much of his time, but was impossible; battling a million lurkers to reclaim a singular man was damn near insanity. He can still hear them, those who ran still chasing him down like a pack of wolves- Kageyama knew he would outrun them, but that didn’t stifle his fear.

This area was the _red x_ he’d marked under his map as uncrossable, the territory where lurkers ruled by numbers far greater than man’s strength could counter.

Or, as his code on his map liked to call it, _the dead zone._

If Kenma was still alive, Kageyama prayed that he had God and a little bit of luck on his side.

Damaged hands raise above Hinata’s face from where he lies on the bed, thinking of his statement hours before. Everyone has since cleared his room in hopes Hinata would get some shut eye... _that’s just about the last thing Hinata did._ His mind did not reflect the same weary state his body did, and even the mere thought of _more rest_ while business with Kageyama was unattended to made the redhead restless.

His eyes trace over swollen fingers and bruised knuckles, nitpicking. Hinata’s always had a strange fascination with hands, how they could do so much. They were the brain’s workers, their creators- able to do practically anything the mind willed them to do, to describe and emphasize what words could not; the peak of evolution. _Beautiful._

He wouldn’t call his hands rough by any means, but they sure weren’t as dainty as they once had been. His whole body had toughened up through hours of vigorous work, but his hands especially- through scaling rooftops, they’d already formed thicker skin, a more durable texture to adapt to a world much more laborious than his previous.

_‘What’s the point of letting them get soft now?’_

He misses that domestic life, though, even if he’d been young dumb and broke. He misses Miyagi, his mom, his friends- whatever reminded him most of Kenma. Hinata was surrounded by friendly people and had his younger sister on his heels, yet he still felt lonely. _‘But it’s alright,’_ Hinata would tell himself with genuine confidence, _‘we’ll see him today. Tomorrow, by the latest- once Kageyama-san gets here, I’ll convince him. I will.’_

“Hinata…?”

Hinata turns to the sound of a voice; he hadn’t even heard the door open. The young man from before stood in that doorway, Nishinoya-san. “Suga told me to check up on you; how’re things doing?”

_“Better,”_ admits Hinata through a sigh, stretching his arms a bit to prove his point, “I can at least _breathe_ now without it hurting.”

Nishinoya chuckles at that, and once again, Hinata’s slightly more at ease, having someone to talk to. “That’s good,” Nishinoya replies, “and- er, Hinata-kun, I understand that you practically just woke up from a coma and you might need another day or two before you’re up to it, but… I’m totally willing to show you around the place, I think you’ll end up really impressed with what we’ve got here.”

Boredom shakes off in the snap of the fingers. “‘S what Natsu said,” Hinata remarks, sitting upright rather abruptly, “I know I’d be up for it, just don’t know if my body feels the same. We’ll see how I do after I stand up.”

“Need some help, there?”

“God, probably- the painkillers have finally set in but my legs are like fucking jello.”

Nishinoya laughs over his stammering, bounding to his aid. “Y’know, you’re a really cool guy, Hinata. I like you.”

Hinata isn’t fond of it, but he likes this guy, too.

With the brunette's arm to steady him, Hinata slowly rises to his feet; but all he can do is frown as he looks at the Nishinoya. These people are just- _different._ Clothed and clean, they looked like actual people, living in an actual world. “You smell… _civilized.”_

“And you certainly don’t. We had you wiped down from head to toe the day you got here and you still smell faintly of rotten ass.”

“Well, ain’t that sexy. Really captures the inner personality.” Ah yes, self-deprecating humor; the mask one wore to hide their debilitating insecurities. Nothing people gravitated towards more.

Nishinoya giggles. “I mean, you can take a shower, if you want.”

Hinata pauses, his eyes widening in shock. “A fucking _what?”_

“Have you not noticed that we have _electricity, Hinata-kun? Running water??”_

Shit; _‘guessed I really hadn’t noticed that.’_ Sad that the most remarkable place in Tokyo felt so unrealistic.

“The whole entire place is lit up like a _firework, baby.”_ Nishinoya pats the walls as if he’d built it himself. “We have some electricians and plumbers that keep this old girl up to check; some mechanics and architects like Tanaka-san and I, too. We practically got the whole package when those bombs hit; we’re some lucky sons of bitches.”

The redhead blinks, reminiscing about his last shower- something he hadn’t really even _thought about_ until now. Oh, how he’d taken such mundane things for granted. “Man, do you even _understand_ how long it’s been since I’ve even felt water...??”

“From the looks of it, _it’s been a while._ Now that I think about it, you may have to wait, though; I don’t know what Suga wants you to do with that arm injury of yours. Unless, I mean, you want me to ask him _now,_ I can-“

“Nah, it’s okay,” shrugs Hinata, “people will think that since I’m all smelly and scarred that I’ve been outside a lot, and they’ll look at me like I’m a complete badass.”

Nishinoya gives him a sudden look that oblivious Hinata couldn’t read; “trust me, I think just about _everyone_ knows who you are by now.”

Hinata’s smile fades. _“Huh?”_

_“If you saw it, you know._ It was like a scene straight from some goddamn _movie_ or something- Kageyama bursting through the doors with you tight against his chest, covered in _blood_ and _sweat_ and these bags and screaming for Sugawara-san… holy _shit._ Kageyama’s brought in some injured people before, but- never one as bad as _you.”_ Hinata just blinks. “Tanaka and a couple of other buds of mine were just sitting there, too, watching this whole thing go down, _choking over our food._ Honestly, it even gave _me_ chills; the entire _lobby_ was hushed and uneasy for the rest of the day.”

Trying to imagine such a scene was damn near impossible for Hinata. He’d hit the ground, blanked, then woke up alive- the guy had slept through his most damaged state, so trying to visualize it was difficult for Hinata; _a void in time that he couldn’t fill._ Not that thinking about being devoured while unconscious was a much grander thought.

“There’s quite a few rumors going on about you, too. You might have to block out all these fans of yours asking what the outside world is like.”

Hinata frowns yet again. “Why would I block them out?” He asks, “I can’t just _tell_ my stories?”

And when Nishinoya continues to give him a blank stare, Hinata returns it. His face, he seems… lost. _Why was this so... confusing to Nishinoya-san? ‘These people are fucking weird.’_

Nishinoya just shakes his head. “Sorry, just- wow. Kageyama doesn’t talk about what he sees out there at all.”

_“Really?”_ Hinata asks, bewildered, “gosh, you guys act like you’ve never…”

The look he gets in return speaks for Nishinoya. _‘A sanctuary, set up at the beginning of the apocalypse…’_

“We consider the lot of us here civilians,” Nishinoya remarks, “of course, we all have jobs to do, y’know- wash our own dishes, wash our own clothes, help out with what we can… _but this base wasn’t designed as slave labor._ People aren’t obligated to do anything they don’t have to besides take responsibility and don’t have an applicable college degree. Everyone’s allowed in and out as they please, it’s more like a shelter.”

A _shelter?_ Must have a goldmine’s worth of resources and men to keep that up. “That’s crazy,” responds Hinata. Some of these people haven’t even ever met up with a biter, before. “Honestly, about Kageyama bottling up about all that stuff… I don’t know, I just feel like it’d be therapeutic to talk about the shit I saw out there, it’s a hell and a half...”

“Well, that’s the difference between the two of you, I guess. The only one Kageyama will listen to around here is _Daichi,_ and Dai-san can’t grab ahold of the kid for longer than ten seconds before he’s gone again. Shit, I don't think I know anything about that guy other than his first name is Tobio and his only personality trait is being a stuck-up asshole.”

The redhead just frowns, a very specific individual coming to mind on the topic of being bottled up, as well as a reminder that Hinata was practically born to counter that kind of personality. Hinata’s head tips back at this, sanguine written all over the corners of his grin, “well, you might’ve just found the right guy to pry him open, then.”

The man just responds with a rather unconvinced raise of the eyebrows, disbelieving. _“You...?_ Talking to _Kageyama…??”_

“Eh.” Hinata kicks back arrogantly. “Wouldn’t call it talking, it’s more like- _pestering.”_

Hinata expects amusement and instead gets terror. “He’ll wipe the floor with you-” Nishinoya proceeds to interrupt his own outburst with a sigh. “Look, Hinata- you’re a good guy, really easy to talk to and all, but Kageyama… Kageyama is nothing like you. He’s defiant and rude, it’s like- trying to talk to a teenage girl that doesn’t want to be talked to.”

Hinata’s eyebrows straighten, unimpressed. “Have you _seen_ exactly who I showed up with? Yeah, try talking to that when it hasn’t had a proper meal in two weeks and you’re trying to risk your life over a couple of bags.”

Nishinoya’s face lightens up a little in realization; Hinata’s sure Nishinoya saw his little sister’s dramatic act with Hinata out cold for a week. The redhead continues on. “I mean, you all seem to complain about this guy and yet not a single one of you has the balls to confront him about it. Mark my words, Nishinoya-san, there’s not a human being on the planet that’s more annoying than I am. I’ll crack Kageyama open like a damn _clam shell.”_

Remaining incredulous, Nishinoya just continues on. “Look, _don’t do that._ Er, you don’t _have_ to do that, I- _I’ll get Dai-san to speak for you…”_

“I’m not just talking about him getting Kenma back for me or even telling him to change his attitude…”

And that’s when Hinata takes a step away from Nishinoya, his first time on the ground in a week. He points to his ribs where the pain was the sharpest, “once these babies heal…”

_“... I’m running with him.”_

_“What?”_

At this point, Nishinoya’s doubt was evident and it was pissing Hinata off. “I don’t know the reasoning for Kageyama being this base’s only salvation, but I’m not going to just sit here while I’ve already got just as much experience out there as I do.”

Hinata can feel the way that his words roll off his tongue; he hadn’t meant them so seriously, but he knows by the way that Nishinoya stiffens up that it stimulates him as if it were a threat. “Look, I’m not against you, Hinata-kun, that’s… _you do you._ In fact, having another guy out there would be amazing, I’m just trying to save you before you get pulled in too deep because I _really really_ think you’ve got the wrong idea on this guy…” Nishinoya’s voice is painfully sincere. It angered Hinata again.

Hinata didn’t care what Kageyama was like, damn it, that wasn’t his point. Kageyama was his main focus solely because he was the only one who could get him out of here. Of course, he wanted to help the guy, but that came hand-in-hand with getting the hell out of here and finding Kenma. “Just how many people are in this base, Nishinoya-san?”

“I dunno, we accepted so many people those first few days… Maybe three hundred? Four??”

_‘Three hundred…?’_

That seemed fucking surreal. But again, this was Tokyo, after all- three hundred people out of ten million didn’t even equate to a crumb’s-worth of a margin. _‘And Kageyama’s being mother-bird all by himself to all that…?’_

“You’re letting just one independable guy be three hundred peoples’ lifeblood?”

“Hinata, _listen to me. Please.”_ His words are bordered with aggression. “You’ve never even _seen_ Kageyama, nor what he’s capable of. He’s an amazing guy, self-sufficient, but he’s got some _serious temperamental issues._ I’ve already paraphrased it a hundred times, I don’t know how else to warn you that Kageyama will fucking _gut you_ if he feels like you’re in his way; you’re better off letting Dai-san handle him.” They made this guy sound like a mass-murderer. Nishinoya places a hand on his shoulder, gentle and caring, “stay at the hotel, Hinata. It’s safe here.”

“But it’s not safe here, Noya-san,” says Hinata, voice raising quickly, “you’re talking about a world you haven’t even seen, none of you know!!”

Pain bolts through his ribs while his lungs fill and he doubles over, Nishinoya’s grip on him tightens. Despite this, Hinata presses on. “You don’t have the right to try and stop me. I’m trying to make a difference for the better, the difference no one else is willing to make; at the very least, you can quit trying to stop me.” Hinata licks his lips as he rises again. “If anyone in this base should be the one to accompany Kageyama-kun, _it should be me._ I know what he’s dealing with out there. I know that having a partner out in hell would be far better than being alone. You understand?”

Nishinoya’s head dips. “Yes, Hinata-kun.” Willingness. Respect. Hinata’s eyes widen.

“I’m- I’m not trying to play _leader,_ here,” Hinata stammers, “just- yeah. Now that we just had like a two minute argument, please let me look around the place. God, I wanna be able to feel my legs again.

Nishinoya dips his head. “Sure, man. Sorry for offending you.”

“No, I’m sorry. You’re just trying to help out.”

Hinata really does like this guy. This was a good place, whether Hinata liked admitting that or not.

The residents here made Hinata believe that maybe, just maybe, the apocalypse wouldn’t be so hard damn. That even the end of the world couldn’t tear people away from their humanity. The system they’d set up here, it was one in a million- made Hinata feel bad for being so jittery and aggressive about Kenma. It was just _unfamiliar,_ and Hinata had a hard time finding contentment in _anything_ when he knew that his best friend’s life was on the line. The brain that backed Hinata’s every decision since high school wasn’t here to guide him anymore- not implying that Hinata had ever listened, but that didn’t change the fact that Kenma was gone.

“Hinata? You okay??’

Jolting back awake, Hinata realizes how easily his thoughts reflected onto his posture and stands upright. _“Yeah-_ yeah, of course.”

“Can you walk?”

“Good question.” Tediously slow steps and Hinata’s off- god honestly? This shit made Hinata feel like _crying._ It didn’t hurt particularly, no, but it damaged his high-strung ego- he’d been so strong a few days ago, and now every part of his body felt bruised and broken. If only he’d just _listened to Kenma;_ Kenma was always, _always_ right, but Hinata had this nasty habit of believing his own philosophy was the truth. His guilt crushed that will of his; however, his determination to get back to Kenma was infinitely stronger- _it urged his body forward._

“You sure you’re up to this?”

It was the little questions that pissed Hinata off the most. _“I’m fine,”_ he grumbles, hoping he didn’t sound too aggressive; he’s not sure he executes it well, Nishinoya goes silent. After a step or two more under Nishinoya’s guidance, Hinata motions he wants to be left alone and Nishinoya takes the hint. Standing wasn’t so bad once you had blood flowing in your legs again. Still, Hinata hated that rehabilitating his legs into walking was necessary- he’d been _flying_ days before.

“They put you and Natsu on the first floor, so at least you won’t have to battle stairs,” Nishinoya comments, “its where we keep all the injured, the elderly, and disabled. I’d imagine that you’re probably going to have to move out of here at some point in time, once you’re all healed up- they need ‘em for people in need, y’know?”

_“I see,”_ is Hinata’s final and only response.

Delicately, the two make their way to the door- Hinata notices right away that the slot above the door handle where you’d normally stick the hotel card in was completely shattered and mangled; he pressumes it has to do with the fact that working with keycards and expiration dates would be an absolute pain in the ass to deal with, so all they kept were the little manual locks. Likely.

And as soon as Hinata’s out in the halls, the breath in his lungs gets stuck there. The place is clean, lively, _like a regular hotel;_ Hinata felt as if he’d travelled back in time. People are at the end of the halls, relaxed people, happy people, laughing and talking with children cackling somewhere behind them- fucking _children._ “It’s nice, huh?”

That was for damn sure; _unbelievable._ Hinata hardly even registers Nishinoya’s laugh over his intense focus on his surroundings- to think he’d thought everyone else in the world was _dead._ Well, at least _the pessimist_ of the group had thought everyone was dead...

Kenma, _he could be safe here._ Finally get some damn help for that head, even though by now he probably wasn’t suffering as badly- this base had it all.

“Hinata?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine-” Hinata aggressively rubs at his eyes- sheesh, was he good at embarrassing himself. _“Lets go,_ I’m hungry as hell.”

A tiny smile spreads on Nishinoya’s face, Hinata thinks the guy is aware of how he feels, “I don’t blame you, you wouldn’t eat much whenever you’d wake. It was mostly just force-feeding a little soup down your throat to keep the big ol’ pills from blowing through your stomach- then you’d be out again. Suga-san told me that one more day and we would’ve had to be shoving tubes down your throat.” Hinata catches the humor but isn’t so sure he’s kidding. “I’m really surprised you’re even up and moving; we figured that when you first woke up you’d ask us for our names, stay in bed a couple of days, y’know- _instead I got a surprise.”_

Hinata chuckles. _“Sorry about that.”_

“Can’t say I wouldn’t have reacted much differently. But, if you’re hungry, that gives us someplace to start.”

Nudging Hinata along like this forced Hinata’s mind to stray away from those pent up, negative thoughts and instead on the activity in the lobby. He knows Nishinoya is talking but Hinata- _surprise surprise-_ isn’t listening again, blown away by the sight of a scenario once so common. Just as Nishinoya foreshadowed, there really _were_ a lot of people here, healthy and talking with faces full of color- Hinata couldn’t process all of this to the point of a clarified emotion. He thinks its excitement, maybe a little pain, but it’s mostly just… _disbelief._ Not only was he lucky enough to have his life saved, but given an opportunity to hunker down in a base so grateful… _‘Kenma should be here.’_

Hinata watches as people’s eyes fall onto him and proceed to freeze there, and blanks when their jaws fall with their eyes begin to round. He doesn’t get it, _why are they all staring with such expression in their faces?_ Did he look that outlandish? Damn, maybe he really should’ve taken a shower first-

But then Hinata remembers what Nishinoya had said earlier, about the people watching him being flighted in all bloody and limp. Not like Hinata was particularly a forgettable sight: a little redheaded guy with surgical wrap bound around his arm, even moreso when his body was far less shriveled and his hair hadn’t met a brush since the apocalypse started. Hinata hears them whisper: _“is that him?? It’s him!!!”_

Hinata just gingerly waves back as more and more heads flock to his direction, their whispering getting louder as they examine him- you’d think he’s a damn celebrity, being treated all high and mighty. He can hear them checking him out almost openly, he didn’t go damn deaf during his fall. No one from Hinata’s paparazzi would actually approach the two of them, though, in fact they seemed to keep distance if anything. They parted where the two were walking like the Red Sea, like Hinata was ginger Jesus’s second coming. Didn’t get _that_ part.

But what Hinata _did_ know was that everyone got more than an eyeful of him, an eyeful of the world outside this damned haven. It made Hinata happy with all the attention; maybe he was setting an example with his tattered down body, maybe he was influencing these people on not to make the same dumb mistakes he did, or believe they could step up and take Kageyama’s place or something...

_“Yo, Asahi-san!”_

Nishinoya bounds forwards to what would’ve been the receptionist’s counter, forcing Hinata’s pace to quicken if he didn’t want to be swallowed alive by the crowd- damn, Noya’s voice was _loud._ Nishinoya slams his hands down on the table and suddenly, the door in front of them opens slowly, almost hesitantly; from these doors a man emerges, a man that would’ve made Hinata scream and run for his life if he’d seen him in any other circumstance. Dangerously tall with a body like the Greek gods themselves, thick, long hair tied up in a man-bun- this guy’s exterior was _terrifying-_ but, the way he sheepishly turned from the shelter of the door damn near confused Hinata. If anything, _he_ was the one looking cautious of Hinata. “Get this man some fucking grub, he deserves it.”

_“He’s alive???”_ This guy’s very voice- _Asahi’s voice-_ seemed to shake, like he’s seen a damn ghost. Not that that would be far from the illogical given Hinata’s complexion. In response, Hinata demonstrates a tiny half-smile, trying to prove his innocence to the jittery hunk of a man, “I don’t know how it happened, either.”

This earns a rather harsh couple of claps on the back from Nishinoya, who must’ve completely forgot about his injuries in the three minute span they’d been walking. “Just get ‘im a can- and then, I want the three of us to go talk to the guys.”

Asahi just shoots a timid smile and dips his head before disappearing back into the room; “ _that’s Asahi-san,”_ introduces Nishinoya, even though he’s heard Nishinoya yell it out plenty of times by now, “he’s in charge of rations as of right now because he’s too chicken to help out with the killing shit along the wall. Guy’s a real sweetheart, though- heart made of glass. Couldn’t imagine life here without him.”

_“Duuuude,”_ Hinata responds, still a bit breathtaken, “what do you even have to be afraid of with a build like that, I’m so fucking jealous.”

_“I feel ya, brother._ Though, I guess you and I can relate on a personal level, being all middle schooler height and shit.”

Hinata gets a genuine laugh out of that before Asahi returns, canned goods and an opener in one hand and a plastic spoon in the other. _“Here.”_

_“Mmmmm,”_ Hinata responds, taking Asahi’s offerings while getting mildly insecure over how much bigger his hands were than his own, _“beeeeaaaans.”_

_“You take them so seriously,”_ Nishinoya snickers, and Hinata greedily begins going to work with the can opener, “that’s because I _am_ serious. Been living off granola bars and dried beef jerky for like- three weeks. To me, this is the holy supper.”

_“Dried_ jerky?”

“Don’t ask, it’s elaborate- I’ll explain later.”

The moment the lid is off, Hinata’s going apeshit on its contents with a spoon; it was coldish, a little plain- all around not the greatest meal, but to Hinata, _it’s heaven._ A different texture, a different taste, and a hungry belly- _phenomenal._ “Thank you,” Hinata mutters through a completely stuffed mouth, to which Nishinoya responds with “slow down, you’ll choke.”

This place was one he could get used to.

Asahi scratches at his hands as Hinata downs the rest of the can, “so, er… I’m-“

_“Asahi-san?”_ Hinata finishes, wiping at his mouth, “yeah, I heard, Noya is kind of loud. I’m Hinata, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Hinata sticks out his hand in greeting and Asahi hesitates before shaking it tenderly. “So you’re… _not_ bitten…?”

The way Asahi spoke made Hinata almost feel at ease, like there wasn’t a single word you could say to the guy that could manage to piss him off- it was deep and soothing, too, a sort of passive tone that Hinata found strange because if he had that voice he knew he’d use it to fuck with people. “Nope,” Hinata confirms, “not bitten.”

Asahi sighs in relief and scratches at the back of his head. _“Go-good._ That’s good, glad you made it, that’s really scary.”

Hinata just pops another spoonful into his mouth while Nishinoya grins. “Hinata’s _amazing,”_ the guy boasts, and Hinata feels himself flushing- all this attention, he wasn’t accustomed to it. “Could you spare a minute to talk with the guys with us, Asahi-san??”

_‘The guys?’_ Hinata’s so occupied by his own thoughts that he doesn’t even hear Asahi’s response; before he can even blink, Nishinoya is no longer at his side, but Asahi. And damn, the guy really _was_ huge. Made Hinata feel as if he were being escorted by a bodyguard as they catch up with his tour’s hasty pace, “who are these... _guys?”_

“Oh, they’re the main bunch that helps monitor the gate- Tanaka, Ennoshita, Kinoshita and Narita- a bunch of scrabbly looking dudes. The five of us take turns watching over the front gates; we all get along like peas in a pod- even all around the same age, isn’t that _crazy??”_

“They get along like a pack of wild dogs,” Asahi mutters in an unpleased voice and Hinata snorts. “Only the five of you, huh?”

“Well, _no-_ people volunteer to take our shifts and a lot of the time they do, there’s this Michimiya chick and a couple of her hot friends who pitch in a lot- Natsu’s been _super_ helpful in between the spurts of time where she wasn’t checking in on you.” Hinata’s eyebrows raise at Natsu’s name. “Where’s she been, lately?”

“She’s usually with Sugawara and Yachi-san- or Kiyoko. But, with the wall as vulnerable as it is, right now the five of us are the most plausible to handle it- need to make sure lurkers don’t cave it in. Oh, and someone needs to watch for Kageyama-kun.”

“Lurkers,” repeats Hinata, _“that what you call ‘em around here?”_

“Oh man, I didn’t even _think_ about other people having different names for them. What do _you_ call them?”

“Natsu and I called them biters,” he responds, then sighs dramatically, “maaaan, lurkers sound so much cooler…”

“Nah, _biters_ is a way more straightforward term. It’s what they do, _bite.”_

“That was kind of the inspiration.”

Nishinoya laughs as they approach the hotel doors and they open automatically, like they’re fucking supposed to do and it shocks Hinata so much that it makes him flinch. Asahi and Nishinoya stop and stare as Hinata apologizes before Nishinoya barks a hard, mocking laugh. The redhead swats at him, bringing forth and anxious _“don’t hurt your arm more, please,”_ from Asahi, and Hinata finds the more and more he interacts with these people, the more he subconsciously became comfortable.

“Hey, fuckheads!”

Nishinoya picks up a rock from the ground, hurling it at this makeshift-looking door and the boys around it jump as it makes a loud clanking sound. Asahi just sighs as the fated group of four begin laughing and whooping at Nishinoya’s approach; Hinata is quick to catch on to Asahi’s forewarning, _‘like a pack of wild dogs.’_

“Christ, Yuu, I about pissed myself!” Hinata chuckles. He could get used to this, though.

“Well I’ll be damned!” A loud, gravelly voice calls, getting the rest to pipe down, “the kid did pull through!”

There’s a taller man that asserts himself forward, sporting a shaved bald head and a nice build with a grin plastered on his face that Hinata could only think to describe as shark-like. An immediate intimidation washes over Hinata at this guy’s aggressively confident posture and it makes him uneasy- he’s shirtless, showing off a defined six pack, and Hinata only stares at them crossly as Nishinoya finds space between them, “Hinata, this is Tanaka-san, Tanaka-san, this is Hinata.”

Nishinoya then proceeds to list the other three men to which Hinata takes note of but it doesn’t rid his hyperfixation on Tanaka. “Nice to meet you all,’ Hinata says, dipping his head, then turns back to Tanaka; “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Hinata receives another wicked, toothy grin, examining the bandages on his arm like a hawk, “shit- you really went through it, didn’t you Hinata?”

_“Hell and back,”_ Hinata replies, and Tanaka puts his hands on his hips, “well, glad you made it- could always use another hand around here.”

“I’d love to,” responds Hinata, “but just know I’ve got my sights set a little further out than just these gates, so I wouldn’t count on it.”

He doesn’t mean his words in a dick way, just doesn’t want to get roped into responsibilities he had no care for. That shit-eating grin of Tanaka’s finally disappears, understanding Hinata’s implications. To Hinata, there’s no greater satisfaction than that dumbfounded look of realization he gets. But Nishinoya, he just rolls his eyes; “you’re really determined, aren’t you, kid?”

“You’re going back _out there??”_ Asahi yelps urgently as his words finally settle, _“why??!_ You can’t go with Kageyama-kun- you’re not going _alone, are you???”_

Seriously, at this point, could anyone just say _“cool”_ or something...? Hinata may have actually found some satisfaction in some little one-liner response like that.

“Sheesh, what’s with all the negativity in this place??” Hinata stresses, and Nishinoya grunts. “Really, it’s not so much you as it is Kageyama. Like I said, _no one_ fucks with him, _ever,_ but I guess we can’t change your mind at this point.”

“Damn straight,” Hinata snaps, and the guys around him startle, sensing the tension in his voice. Honestly, any of these guys surrounding him could probably knock the lights out of him in one punch- a little unfair, his physique was. Maybe they’d be more lenient on him if he were built like Tanaka or Asahi. Probably.

“Hey, guys!!” Ennoshita suddenly calls, “we got a single lurker on the street, who wants to knock its brains in?”

Tanaka and Nishinoya are quick to perk up, like dogs being offered a bone. _“I do!!!”_ Asahi just shudders. The two begin shoving at one another as they race, chortiling and leaving both Hinata and Asahi in a cloud of dust; “no way, you got the last one! How is that fair...?!”

_“They’re crazy.”_ Hinata turns back to Asahi, who has his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, _“they’re insane.”_

Hinata just laughs with their bickering in the wind. “Nah, they’re just full of testosterone. And maybe a little insane.”

“It's so _gross,”_ Asahi whines, “I hate blood as much as it is, let alone when it’s decaying lurker blood. You’re crazy, too, for wanting to go out there- I threw up the day Kageyama brought you in.”

The redhead laughs and begins bounding after the other two as fast as he dared. “Damn- if only I hadn’t broken my ribs, I would’ve been the one to knock that thing’s brains out,” says Hinata, slowing down as the pain in his chest begins to grow, increasingly tight. His face curls into a wince and he comes to a full stop, doubling over as pain shot into his side. He releases it with a constricted gasp and tender fingers pressing to the pain; it, too, was bandaged to spare him the worst of it- but many places were even sorer than others. He couldn’t wait to see all the bruises and welts whittled into his skin when he undressed later tonight, to run his fingers over his ribs and feel the unnatural dip in his sides. “I would be... _gone by now,_ if not for these ribs…”

_“Gone...?”_ repeats Asahi, oblivious to Hinata biting his lip and on the verge of tears in front of him, “where would you even _do_ out there? Where would you go??”

“I’d…” Hinata stops, seeing that tiny, frail blonde in front of him, his head all wrapped in cloth and his clothing ripped and dirty, covered in countless tiny scars where the glass had embedded into his skin. He was still smiling, just faintly.

Hinata makes sure Asahi can’t hear him so as not to get called insane again. _“I’d go home.”_

Hinata swallows through the tightness of his throat and repeats a little stronger: “I’d go home.”

“ _Hinata…?”_ Asahi catches on. “Are you-”

_“Fine.”_ He wipes his nose with an angry side-swipe before sniffling and carrying on, his lips quivering- he can’t bring himself to look back at Asahi, _‘you’re fine, Kenma’s fine. Shut up.’_

Hinata hears excited squealing and looks up to see the rest of the four out in the open, along with the sound of a metal pole cracking against what was very obviously a skull; “take that, you son of a bitch!!!”

The redhead wipes his eyes again and blinks away the last of his tears. He didn’t have Kenma, but at least he wasn’t alone. At least there was a place that Hinata could feel safe and secure, a place where his sister resided, a place he could bring Kenma back to and not let him down.

“Crazy,” Asahi repeats. Hinata kinda liked that about them.

“So, Ennoshita’s in charge of the guns?”

“He’s a freak about em- never misses his shot.”

Hinata picks at the grass between his crossed legs, staring up at Tanaka with interested eyes. The five of them: he, Tanaka, Nishinoya, Asahi, Kinoshita, and Narita, had formed a little circle next to the little watchtower- which, Hinata wasn’t sure it could actually be called that right now, it was hardly more than a platform right now.

Ennoshita, who still remained on top of it, nodded smugly. “But, you know, since mister fucking royalty out there hasn’t been doing his job properly, that hasn’t been much of the case lately.”

The mood seems to sour a little. “That bastard Kageyama,” Nishinoya grumbles, and the rest of them repeat it in unison, laughing. Even Hinata with his many problems feels at ease, grinning and soaking in the sun he’d been so deprived of yet making sure he remained hydrated to ward off his headaches. It was nice being able to talk about these things; Kenma, obviously, had never been able to relate to Hinata’s struggles in the outside world- and Natsu had assisted him in nearly every venture. These guys didn’t have the exact same relatability, but they knew more than poor Kenma had. “Hinata?”

Hinata awakes from his own little world. “Huh?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” he responds, “hell- I’ll be twenty-two in about a month.”

The entire circle shifts in awe. “Twenty-one? Man, I thought you were like- _seventeen._ You’re the same age as that bastard Kageyama, only way shorter.”

That bastard Kageyama.

“Oh, piss off, you’re shorter than I am.” Hinata shoves him with his good arm, Nishinoya laughs, “but I don’t sound like a girl.”

Hinata pouts at this and intentionally emulates a female voice when he says: _“stop making fun of me!”_ This _really_ gets Nishinoya going, pulling the whole circle into hearty laughter. How glad Hinata was that they shared a sense of humor.

And so they just talk, going on to talk about alcohol and pre-apocalyptic food- other manly things, like Hinata proving he wasn’t a girl by groping his nonexistent tits and threatening to whip out his _“proud two inches”_ if necessary, getting Tanaka laughing so hard he started crying- Asahi just looked gravely disappointed in them. He and Ennoshita were perhaps their only voices of reason, managing to change the subject any time they got a little too dark or too obscene or too stupid. Life was... _okay._

And that’s when, in the midst of their rambling, a light, pretty voice speaks out behind him. _“Hinata-san?”_

Hinata whips around at his name being spoken by a girl to see a little blonde lady so tiny that even he gapped her in height. Her head was tilted, eyes wide- she looked timid. She was cute. A much more familiar body looms next to her, however, ruining his moment- “you don’t have to greet him so formally. He responds to Numbnuts just fine.”

Hinata only manages a glare at his sister before stirring begins behind him. “Oh god, it’s Yacchan!” Nishinoya jibes, “Kinoshita, quick- _smother Ryuu, he’ll scare her away!!!”_

An embarrassed smirk crosses the girl’s face and Hinata gives her a silent, sympathetic grin, trying hard not to snap at them as Hinata gets jostled in the middle of their play-fighting. “Oh, you guys don’t scare me.”

_‘Yachi-san,’_ Hinata thinks.

“I think you’d be scared if you saw Hinata’s two inches.”

Hinata swallows wrong and its evident through the sound he emits through his nose, going into a coughing fit as he slaps the back of Nishinoya’s head so hard he rocks forwards, _“I do not-”_

He turns back to the two girls, still choking and pointing so aggressively his fingers shake as the others excluding Asahi wailed with laughter, “I’m not- I do _not.”_

Yachi is bright red at this point, but it looked as if it were taking the lady her all not to grin. Meanwhile, Natsu still just stared with lidded eyes and folded arms, “Suga-san told us you needed more painkillers,” she explains, “so she’s bringing you some, assuming you’ve eaten-”

_‘Right, she’s the other doctor. Er, nurse. Veterinarian?’_

Yachi blinks. “I’m surprised you even made it, really- Natsu-chan told me all about it, you two are really brave...”

Hinata just shrugs, “I’d say it’s more stupidity.”

When Yachi laughs and Hinata smiles warmly back, he receives a very sudden change in Natsu’s face which gets Hinata to roll his eyes at her in practice of the common ritual of sibling telepathy. _‘I don’t mean it like that-‘_

Natsu’s face responds with something along the lines of _‘like hell you don’t.’_ He’s honest, really-

“That’s right, Yachi-san; Hinata-kun’s a _bad boy,”_ jibes Tanaka, then exchanges a devilish look with Nishinoya who speak in unison, _“two inch bad boyyyy.”_

Hinata brims with embarrassment. “They never saw my dick, okay.”

“I think I’m glad.”

Hinata’s entire body erupts in shock as the guys explode into hollering: _“you just got roasted by Yacchan!!”_ Apparently she kinned with this humor; who would’ve thought.

Natsu grins. “You gonna take that, Niichan?” Sounded a bit devious.

Hinata just puts his hands up in surrender.

“You know what, I’m just gonna leave these and go,” Yachi says, still smiling, “poor Hinata-san is getting flamed.”

Natsu claps. “Keep it up boys, you’re doing great.”

Hinata laughs, not expecting a girl as timid as Yachi to use the word flamed and picks up what she hands him; Hinata likes her. _“Hey,”_ Hinata calls while she turns away, “talk to me later when these assholes aren’t still around.” Yachi nods, still smiling, to which Natsu _“eewwww”s_ at. Hinata’s a little surprised Natsu herself doesn’t stay, they’re usually damn near inseparable. Maybe knowing he wanted to talk to Kageyama had to do with it...

They depart and Nishinoya damn near immediately hypes him up in a mocking way, getting Hinata to roll his eyes. “Seriously, fucking fuck you guys,” he growls, taking a break as he downs the pills with a few gulps of water. “You were totally hitting on her,” Nishinoya replies.

“Because I responded to her in the same way I responded to you guys? Sheesh-“

_“Oh, yeah,”_ Nishinoya snorts, “because offering a girl to talk to you when other men aren’t around isn’t flirtatious _at all-“_

It takes Hinata his all to retain his _”I’m dumb gay whore, you idiot.”_

“I’m offering to talk when _assholes_ aren’t around, not _men,”_ Hinata fires back, “you’re all as mature as primary schoolers. Except you, Asahi-san, I really appreciate it.”

Asahi just sighs in return, which Hinata interpreted as _“it’s like I’m the uncle who never wanted children yet was forced to watch my brother’s kids while he left for vacation. It’s been three weeks, my brother still has yet to return. I am running purely off coffee, my veins are contaminated with the chemicals of energy drinks and I am pissing blood. Please help,”_ and Hinata thought that was a fair answer

“Ugh, man, it’s getting late,” Tanaka grumbles, adding bluntly, “I hope Kageyama didn’t get bitten or something.” The circle kind of goes quiet, and Hinata looks to the sun. It’s over their heads yet, leaning towards the end of the day but there was still time. Still enough time to get Kenma back today.

If Kageyama made it home, of course.

“Hey Hinata?” His head turns to Nishinoya. “What’s it like out there, out in the shit?”

Hinata pauses, letting the first word come to his mind, which was: _“scary.”_

The circle hushes down, intent on focusing. “It’s- yeah. It’s really scary out there.”

Hinata stares at the ground, listening to the wind as all went quiet; every once and a while, that wind would carry with it the scent of blood, so fresh and sweet. A reminder. “It’s beyond dangerous,” Hinata begins solemnly, “like any wrong move could cost you your life and I know that for a fact because I’ve ‘bout bit the dust more times than I can count on my fingers. The roads where we resides were so thick and dense with biters that I used rooftops to make my way around-“

_“Rooftops??”_ Narita echoes, and Hinata nods. “Yeah, like- parkour, almost. I was that badass.” The circle around him makes startled yet impressed noises, like they’d believe anything Hinata would tell him. “Has Natsu not told you any of this?”

“She’s been real quiet with you out, very vague,” informs Nishinoya, “especially when it came to talking about you. I think I’ve learned more just taking you for a tour ride around the place than I got in the week’s time from her.”

Hinata understands damn near immediately but refuses to say anything on the subject; Natsu, as much as she liked this place, was just as skeptical as he himself was. Skeptical of Hinata’s loyalty, at least. Hinata found it odd that Natsu was applying herself in the medical field over some hands-on, dirty job though- she was probably trying to protect him by being away from the most questioning of mouths, at least while Hinata was downed.

“Well, I know for a fact that without her on my ass, I wouldn’t have lasted long. That world out there is a fresh hell, and it won’t be tamed by just one guy; no man is great enough. Not even you, Tanaka-San, with your godly six-pack and biceps.”

Hinata receives an ingenuine gasp that makes him grin, but that face only lasts for a second or two as things traverse in his mind. “I myself don’t even like how optimistic I am about all this, but as long as I can stomach Kageyama-kun, I’m going with him. There’s not a single person in this base who wouldn’t benefit from that-“

“Sounds like Hinata’s trying time snuggle up with his guardian angel,” Nishinoya pries, and Hinata gives him today’s third gentle swat _(perhaps the second if you consider the violence of the previous hit),_ “seriously, Noya, you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Am I wrong, though?”

_“Yes,”_ Hinata answers hotly, “I just- _and don’t laugh at me for believing in myself,_ but I genuinely think that I can eventually deal with this guy. And man, I love the feeling of- _dying and shit.”_

“Hey, speaking of which,” Ennoshita calls, “Hinata’s forbidden lover is coming up on the front- a little slow, he looks…” Ennoshita’s voice drops a little, _“fatigued as hell.”_

“Finally!” Exclaims Tanaka, rising to his feet and hell, Hinata couldn’t have said it better himself. His toes curl inside his shoes after an unsteady rising- finally indeed. _‘He’s our runner. The only one brave enough to actually go out there and get what we need is that guy.’_

Narita and Kinoshita start for the gate, hurrying along when Ennoshita signaled at them and whistled- god, was Hinata excited to meet the asshole that everyone dreaded. Tanaka stands to the side, hands on his hips, “being ‘er home, Kageyama-kun...!”

Hinata watches the guy dart into the clearing, skidding to a halt and kicking up dust with his hands gripping his knees, coughing- _a feeling Hinata knew all too well._ With a slow strut forward, chest puffed ever so slightly, Hinata begins: “hey, Kageyama-kun…”

Whatever confidence had riddled Hinata’s voice fizzles out in mere seconds as that guy rises to his full height in front of him, brushing his bangs out of his eyes, revealing his face and the sharpened aspects of his body while Hinata just blinks.

Kageyama is not _at all_ what Hinata had expected him to look like.

For whatever reason, Hinata had been imagining this oldish looking hunk of a guy, rather unflattering imagery- probably had acne scars and a scruffy, malnourished beard beginning to grow and a huge chest- just what Hinata pictured as scary-looking. But Kageyama, holy hell, he’s young, clean, sporting an athletic build… he’s taller than the bunch of them, at least six foot- slender, but not in a scrawny way, Kageyama was lithe. Black hair with these midnight blue eyes, everything about Kageyama was sharp- sharp eyes with a glare that could cut, a sharp jawline that could cut-

The last thing Hinata has been expecting during this intervention was Hinata to get tongue-tied- _no one had mentioned that Kageyama was bout hot as fuck._ Whatever version of this guy Hinata had been expecting, this one was everything the guy equated to and more, all sleek and mysterious- anyway, who the fuck looked that good after running for like- four hours straight?

Hinata moons. _‘Holy shit he’s hot.’_

Snapping his flapping jaw shut, Hinata tries again: “Ka- Kageya-“

“I want every last hole in this wall sealed, do you guys hear me?”

Hinata is shocked when he’s blatantly ignored with the turning of the heels- he’s not so sure that Kageyama even recognizes that he’s there. He stares, brows furrowed, watching as Kageyama lugs his bag onto the ground, still panting viciously as he does so, “every hand you can pitch in and find... _we need them._ Defenses need to be grounded right now if we think we’re gonna have a chance at anything that hits us.”

“The hell’s going on??” Their expressions seem to condense under Kageyama’s words and Hinata’s pissed that the spotlight’s taken off of him. Head last, Kageyama turns again, “ran into some things up north, want to run it through with Dai-san before we come up with a fullproof-“

Hinata’s presence seems to startle him, as his feet stop rather abruptly. And slowly, as Kageyama’s eyes land on Hinata, they begin to widen, the hand that brushed back his hair leaving his hair a jumbled, oily mess. Beads of sweat still dot along his forehead while his breathing begins to shallow, _“you.”_ His voice is deep, rugged. _Sexy._ Another shocker, it suits him.

No doubt about it, this was their runner. This was their Kageyama.

“The name’s Hinata,” he responds flightily, crossing his hands behind his back as he looks the guy up and down, “I, _uh-“_

A deep sigh comes from the back of his throat as his head sinks. “I already know what you want,” says Kageyama, which makes Hinata snort. _‘Do you, big boy-‘_

_“Get the hell out of my way.”_

_‘What-’_

Hinata grunts as he gets hit in the shoulder by the body he adored so dearly, anger beginning to build in his corrupted little mind; _“hey!!”_

He gets a swift shake the moment he grabs for Kageyama’s arm but it certainly gets the guy’s attention, allowing that blue gaze to try and cut him down. It doesn’t work. “What the hell kind of a response is _that??!”_

“You want your damn _friend back,”_ Kageyama spits, lungs seemingly full of hot air, “same damn friend I’ve been trying to find for the past _week,_ trust me, I know. Your sister hasn’t let me hear the end of it.”

Oh, boohoo- how tragic for a guy with the body of a modern day hero; Hinata betted that he could knock a building over with the flick of a finger if he wanted to. _“And?”_ Hinata continues with a challenging dip of the head, “you say it like you’ve already assessed the situation and made up your mind- _did you see him or something??”_

From the way Kageyama responds with his eyebrows all twitchy, Hinata doesn’t think anyone’s really ever tried to match him here before- but, it takes all of a few seconds for that anger to channel, his shoulder turning, “the place I’ve been told to look in is damn near a _death zone,_ Hinata-san. It almost cost me my fucking _life_ today.”

Hinata very easily recalls the number of biters around his base that seemed to grow with each and every day- Hinata wasn’t doubting that that number had increased. “I’m telling you, if anyone was alive around there, they would’ve packed up by now. If I can’t survive ten minutes out in the _outskirts_ of that shit, _no one can.”_

Frowning heavily, Hinata pauses before asking: “what’re you saying?”

“I’m saying if there’s a god, so help your friend because I am not risking my ass _any-fucking-more._ I’ll keep an eye out, but this ongoing search and rescue lead by one man isn’t working out.”

Struck deep by Kageyama’s words, all Hinata can do is watch as the guy takes another few steps forwards, eyes set on the men behind him, “there’s a horde all too close to us that could wipe our whole group out in a matter of minutes- there are thousands, _millions_ of them down near central Tokyo. They’re not headed towards us, but for whatever reason they’re condensing- right now, we don’t even stand a fighting chance. I want patrols out looking for escape routes, materials- anything you can find; we need this place _fortified. We’re not losing everything we worked for without a fight.”_

Tanaka snorts. _“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak.”_ Kageyama just brushes him off, but Hinata makes sure Kageyama listens to his words: _“what about Kenma??!”_

Now, the thing was, Kageyama had every right and logic to deny him in looking for Kenma, and Hinata knew that. But in no way, after knowing he’d been out for a week straight and after all the false promises that Kageyama wouldn’t leave another at risk like that, but the way Kageyama shrugs him off as if it’s business pisses him off. “I already gave you the answer to that.”

“But you can’t…”

Kageyama looks more and more disinterested with him by the second. “That’s not fair, he’s _wounded-“_

“Do you know how many times I’ve already had to hear that?!” Kageyama’s chest flares and Hinata’s does in return, seething, “do you think I haven’t done everything I can to-“

“If you haven’t found him, dead or alive, _you haven’t done enough yet!!”_ Hinata’s voice rises into a scream then breaks when he speaks his next line: “he’ll die out there on his own...!”

With the tip of his head, Kageyama seems to dismiss him. “That’s not my problem, anymore. I’m sorry, Hinata, but the world doesn’t revolve around you and your little band of fucking miscreants- especially not this one. For all I know, you two are trying to rope me into some clan affair, get me killed so you can overrun this place…”

Watching Kageyama turn away, Hinata bites down on his serpent’s tongue because saving Kenma’s life was so much more important than winning an argument with this asshole. “Please, just- _listen to me!”_ He cries, “I’ll do _anything!!”_

Feet launching on their own, Hinata lunges after Kageyama, snagging the front of his shirt from behind.

_“I need him back!!“_

But there’s little time for Hinata’s words to form before he finds his ass against the concrete, head reeling from the sharp and sudden pain in his ribs and tailbone. Instantly, the people dead on their feet behind them stir, Tanaka’s growly voice coming out even louder than usual, _“hey!!!”_

He doesn’t think Kageyama had meant to do that, but now that he was looking down on him eithout regret it infuriated Hinata even more. They stare at each other with wordless loathing in their eyes, Hinata’s fingers dragging into the concrete as his lip curled upwards into a snarl. “He’ll _die.”_

Kageyama squints and then takes off like it’s fucking nothing. Again, Hinata repeats in a scream, “he’ll die, Kageyama!! I thought you of all people would understand that! Asshole!!!”

_”Piss off.”_ Kageyama did understand, Hinata knew, but only god knew if that man was capable of empathy. He doesn’t even stop as he draws near to the base, hiking his bags up further on his shoulders. Asahi is crouched next to him by now with the rest crowded around him, ready to fight the very man who did their dirty work for the sake of an acquainted stranger, all asking if he _“needed Sugawara-san.”_ But, Hinata doesn’t listen- he _can't, really._ Blood was flooding his ears in panic and pain; he feels his throat beginning to tighten, tightening and tightening and making his shoulders tremble while panic rose in his lungs, in his mouth, in his eyes.

Just like that, it was all over. Hinata’s one opportunity was gone. How anticlimactic.

Hinata’s eyes stare wide down at the ground, still on his knees, he’s so lost and confused. How had that ended so damn quickly? He wanted to fight, damn it. He wanted to slug that condescending look right off Kageyama’s fucking face, to see some blood in that pretty little unblemished mouth of his. Hinata’s so _mad._

Because, per usual, Hinata the hotheaded mess hadn’t listened, and the others had been right. What were they even waiting for at this point...? He knows they want to laugh at him, go rub it in his face-

Nishinoya appears at his side. “Hinata, are you okay?”

Hinata breaks to look at him, feeling hot and numb. Everywhere that pained his body was on fire right now. He feels his lip quiver as the crowd stands over the top of him, looking down with such concern; Hinata felt fucking _helpless,_ weak. Slowly, his lips begin to draw back, those welling tears beginning to pool, sounds begin to leave the back of his throat.

“It’s not your fault, man, _it’s him._ I’m sure he’ll change his mind-“

And the redhead’s teeth clack together as one last move before he completely shuts down and he screams his heart out onto the dirt and concrete in front of him. Because there was nothing else he could fucking do.

Hinata was helpless.

_“Kageyamaaa!!!”_

Damn, this was embarrassing. Hinata wheels his palms onto this floor, watching Nishinoya’s feet jump away as Hinata’s tears hit where they were just seconds ago. He screams until his side begins to hurt, screams until his throat stings and he feels like he’s going to throw up. He screams because he can't fucking cope anymore; everything had gone sourly and Hinata wasn't even given the chance to prove himself or persist. He fucking failed Kenma yet _again,_ what else was he supposed to do...?

_‘Dramatic bitch, stop throwing a temper tantrum about it.’_ Hinata stops, finally, inhaling to the extent where it hurt and grabbing at his shirt with his bad hand, feeling his healing vocals groan in protest. _‘Kageyama…’_

Hinata’s fingers finally loosen as he shakily hyperventilates, attempting to catch his breath again.

“That was fucking _sickening,”_ Hinata hears Kinoshita say somewhere above him, and Hinata just stares at his dirty fingernails covered in spit and tears, listening to them as someone, probably Asahi, gently rubs circles on his back. He hears someone begin pacing around, stomping, their breathing getting increasingly loud and Hinata guesses it’s Nishinoya, “I'm going to kick the _shit_ out of that guy-”

_“No!”_

Everyone stops, and after he swallows down the saliva built thick in his mouth, he croaks: “don’t.”

_“Huh??”_

Wiping at his mouth, Hinata refuses to meet anyone’s eyes. “Whatever I need to do to prove myself… _I’ll do it.”_ His fingers curl, he shakes. This hadn’t been a part of his plan at all, and this _“Plan B”_ of his might delayed things, but…

“I know how to deal with this guy. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again. I’ll do it.”

Despite a horrible first interaction, Hinata’s mindset remained mostly unchanged. _‘I’m so fucking sorry, Kenma. Just hang in there for me, wherever you are. I’m coming for you.’_

Hinata takes a hand and rises to his feet.

_‘I’m coming whether Kageyama lets me or not.’_

_‘That redheaded kid,’_ thinks Sugawara, _‘Hinata.’_

His eyes don’t gleam so much now, not like they had this morning.

The guy was frustrated and it seeped off his bones like it was rotting his skin. Not a single light left inside those brown irises of his, Hinata knows he’s been bested, dealing with pain that ran both directions. If were Sugawara’s call to make, he would’ve guessed that this was Hinata’s breaking point, but...

“Suga-san, I've never been more serious about anything in my _entire life.”_

_This kid was a nutcase._

“Are you still trying to talk him into it?” Questions Sugawara, “Kageyama?”

And that bastardly spark returns, albeit for a second, it was that second that gave Sugawara a further sense of certainty as Hinata responds: _“absolutely.”_

A deep sigh emits from the depths of Sugawara’s sustained lungs as he grabs the roll of wrap from his supply kit. “You’re sure that’s the way you wanna get out of here? Y’know, this is my first ever time telling someone this, but you’re free to leave once you’re healed up...”

“That’s…”

Sugawara senses his hesitance and looks up; Hinata’s eyes are trained on his lap, but somehow his face js just as readable. _“That’s not what I’m getting at._ I don’t care _where_ I am, I just want him back, Suga-san.”

Huffing in amusement, Sugawara smiles as he goes to work on the old wrapping around Hinata’s arm; this kid was relentless for sure, and his sister wasn’t far from the coop. “I understand, Hinata, I do and I’m so sorry. I miss my own family, too, everyone’s missing someone-“

_“No-“_ interrupts Hinata, then catches onto his rudeness, “er- I mean, _me too,_ and I’m sorry if I make this sound like a dick, but… out there, I _know_ Kenma could die, yknow? And as for my family… god, _who knows_ what’s going on in the rest of Japan…”

“You weren’t from Tokyo, then, huh?”

Hinata’s head shakes, “itty bitty town in the Miyagi prefecture… Hadn’t seen a big city skyscraper my whole life, and, you know…”

Hinata smiles in a way that seems emotionally devoid. “All the sudden the day I get here they’re being blown to the ground.”

Sugawara’s brows furrow, discomfort and sorrow crawling up his spine- what had Hinata done to deserve this? What had anyone done to deserve this?? Slowly, with Sugawara lost in his thoughts, the bandage around Hinata’s arm gets looser, the skin of his arm slowly being revealed...

A god awful inhalation sound damn near makes Sugawara jump as Hinata follows it up with a vicious cough that brought his fingers to his ribcage. Sugawara doesn’t know too much about Hinata, but he could already guess what that reaction had been all about.

He examines the long scar running down his arm, riddled with stitches and Hinata does too. “We’ll have to get these out sometime soon, so make sure you stay as clean as possible with them…”

That mark on his arm, whatever the hell had been inscribed into his skin was now completely and totally illegible, ruined by the tearing and removal and sewing of skin from when he had fallen from that window. Nothing remained but a few rugged, black edges along the sides of what surely was going to leave a massive scar wound from where it ripped.

A lack of response from Hinata is what worries Sugawara about this scene; it gets him to purse his lips before speaking: “I saved what I could. You’re lucky you even have an arm, damn nightmare… you could’ve struck one too many veins and bled to death…”

Silence ensues. Sugawara doesn’t meet Hinata’s eyes as he touches his wound up with sanitizing wipes, he’s affairs of what he’ll see in those oh so expressive eyes of Hinata’s. But, Hinata doesn’t struggle, doesn’t snap at him-

Instead, he begins to tremble beneath Sugawara’s touch. That tattoo has been more than just a tattoo to Hinata.

_“Sugawara...”_

He still refuses to look as he finished up the fresh bandaging of Hinata’s arm, careful not to make it too tight. “Yes, Hinata?”

“Get out.”

_“H-huh???”_

Sugawara braces himself as he looks up and still immediately wishes he wouldn’t have.

“Get _out.”_

All Sugawara can process are those shineless eyes of gold, all too wide yet still managing to glow beneath the shading of his hair. Dear god, those eyes-

They reminded Sugawara of someone, the exact same someone that could either make or break what Hinata was feeling inside. And right now, Sugawara hopes Hinata wasn’t plunging into the depths of fucking insanity because his voice didn’t match his face one bit.

_“You need to get out.”_

Blatantly, Sugawara does what he’s told. _You know why?_

He’s scared, _horrified,_ even. Because, as different as the two were, those eyes managed to gloat the same vicious intensity that Kageyama Tobio’s did; and Sugawara couldn’t help himself but make a vow that he’d keep an eye on Hinata the same way he did with Kageyama out of mistrust. He’s surprised Hinata doesn’t start screaming the moment he leaves.

The following few days the air surrounding the hotel base was foggy and heavy, much like the tension that swamped thick around all of them, as the story of Hinata and Kageyama had eventually spread to even the civilians. Ever since Hinata had woken up, this rather uneventful place had become heavy with commotion; such a drama queen, that fucker was.

Hinata hadn't been injured any further by Kageyama’s throw, but was advised by, well, fucking everyone to _“stay away from him.”_ But, “Hinata” and “listening” wasn’t a set of words that worked in particular harmony. _It wasn’t about to happen._

Hinata’s wounds weren’t quite the horror story he’d been expecting, but that didn’t make the bruises on his skin and the cuts on his body any less ugly. Nearly the entirety of his left side was covered in an amalgamation of reddish-brown, purple seeping in near his chest- not only did his ribs make it painful to twist, but this fat ass bruise wasn’t making things any better. The more he looks at his blemished flesh, the more it sinks in on just how lucky he was to make it out alive.

His arm, however, was a much different story. Ripping all the way from his forearm to his wrist, it was strangely symmetrical for such a nasty looking wound. Every inch of it reeked of rubbing alcohol and the amount of stitches it held- Hinata couldn’t count them all. To make matters all the worse, Hinata hardly even remembers his fall, and if this had been his condition…

_‘How had I lived?’_

Days drag on after Hinata’s first interaction with Kageyama, and if his body weren’t so fucked up, he’s not sure his restless mind would’ve ever slept. For every time Hinata’s eyes shut, Kenma’s phantom shadow would be there before him in his sleep, haunting him and bringing false promise of his return, only to have Hinata awake in his bed each and every time. Natsu would be there, too, having similar restless thoughts- Hinata knows she empathizes, but… he’s not so sure Natsu really understands.

Without Kenma, Hinata felt… alone. What a dangerous word, huh? _Alone??_

But, through the skin of his teeth, Hinata finds a way. Every once and awhile, after the occasional five hour nap, Hinata had it in him to pitch in with the group, prove his worth, talking to Asahi or Nishinoya or Suga. He asks them about Kageyama, but no one really seems to have an answer for him. He tried diverse questions with a diverse cast, ranging from what Kageyama did on runs to his personal life, but each and every time he got an _“I don’t know”,_ which eventually became too monotonous for Hinata to bear. Hinata didn’t know enough about this guy to want to approach him, made Hinata want to rip his hair out as opportunity after opportunity presented itself but the redhead would refuse to take it.

What Hinata _did_ know about Kageyama was that he had the most awful aura to him, an aura Hinata couldn’t decipher like he could amongst the other men of this group. He was a quiet form of a threat, the kind that made Hinata unsure if Kageyama’s next motion would be to yell his lungs out or whisper softly. Whatever kind of personality Kageyama had was guarded by this rude, rough exterior- one that no one so far could manage to even lay a finger on. The calm before the storm; ‘cept Kageyama _was_ the fucking storm and he managed to brew beneath the base with an unpredictablity like no other. Motherfucker wouldn’t let Hinata even catch his _breath._

However, Kageyama’s ability to bring people to silence with just his presence- now _that_ stood out. Whether it be that sharp gaze of his or his sheer unpredictability, Hinata could only annotate that man as a phenomenon- one of a damn kind.

A couple of days after their fight, Yachi managed to uphold her promise of visiting him _(at least that’s how Hinata believes it, Yachi would argue she was sent to drop off medicine and ended up stuck there)_ and, as they found, the two got along better than Hinata would’ve expected. A deep, mutual respect for one another built within their first conversation- for once, Hinata could speak with someone about things that weren’t male body parts and genitals and clear whatever was on his mind; have a genuine conversation with someone on the other line actually _listening._ He could cry over something insignificant and not be mocked, but comforted- something not even Natsu provided consistently. They weren’t as in-depth as what he and Kenma’s got to, but they got pretty damn close what with it being the apocalypse- and it was therapeutic. Hinata loved Yacchan.

She was the first person to actually give something to Hinata about Kageyama, which was: _“ugh, that guy gives me a headache._ Can’t say I’m the biggest fan of him, but he definitely knows his place…”

“I just-“ Hinata’s hands fling from underneath the covers of his bed, genuinely irritated by his inability to comprehend Kageyama’s thought process; “I don’t _get him,_ Yachi-san. His tendencies are totally assholish, but that doesn’t…”

_“He’s just a narcissist, Hinata-kun,”_ Yachi says, “I don’t think you should be as stressed as you are about this-“

_“His actions don’t reflect his intentions,”_ Hinata finishes, swinging his legs off the bed as if he were going somewhere. He stays put. “Kageyama doesn’t communicate for shit. A narcissist would be all full of themselves, and while Kageyama doesn’t ever agree with himself being in the wrong, he doesn’t put up a fight about it as a douchebag would… wouldn’t save a dying kid on the streets if he weren’t selfless.”

“Jeez, Hinata-kun,” Yachi huffs in response, “you should've been a psychologist.”

“Nah, Kenma should've been the psychologist,” Hinata sighs, brushing his bangs out of his eyes, “‘bet he'd have been able to read Kageyama like a damn _book.”_

_“Hey.”_ Yachi plops down on the bed next to him, immediately going to work with a chunk on the underside of his hair; he’s not sure what she’s doing, but he thinks she begins to knot the underside of his locks into a tiny braid. “Don’t say it like he's not still out there,” says Yachi, “I'm sure Kenma’s _fine.”_

Hinata huffs a laugh, “you... _really_ don't know what it's like out there…”

And her response is this offended sort of scoff. _“So what if I don't?”_ She retorts, “doesn’t mean I can't be _optimistic about it. I_ believe in him, Hinata, and I think that you should too.”

There would’ve been a time where Hinata would’ve been optimistic as well, thinking back to a little less than a week prior when he’d first woke up here. He’d been so damn determined to get Kageyama to listen, and the mere thought of that hurt him knowing he’d already lost touch with himself so much that not even Yachi-san could see that anymore. All this loss in more or less than a month- _whatever was to come would be far worse…_ he hopes that these people can fix a damaged soul, because he wants to end up as an asset for them. Good for Yachi, good for his sister- good for Nishinoya and Tanaka, Sugawara and Daichi and Asahi, all the guys, all the people who lived here…

Good for Kageyama.

Hinata laughs in an uplifted manner, “you’re right, Yachi-san. Thank you.”

Yachi grins back with what seemed to be the finishing loop of whatever the hell she’d been doing, then rises to her feet. “That’s my Hinata-kun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be out of your hair now.”

Hinata flicks at his braids, _ha._ “Why? You not like my company?” The redhead grins, and Yachi returns it. “Of course I do, but I know for a fact that Tanaka-san gets jealous easily, and that you have to hear an earful for every time we interact.”

Hinata rises to his feet when Yachi offers a hand; he’s grown a little stronger. His legs don’t wobble and his ribs don’t ache with every movement- sure, he still hurt like a bitch, but it was only enough to faze the guy when he was unlucky enough to bump into something. He’s lost weight, strength- _how long had he been immobilized now?_ A week and a half, two weeks?? It didn’t matter, as much as Hinata had been itching for a good workout, his desire to make sure his body was prepared for it was far greater and it pained him, but he had his priorities straight.

_‘Kenma is fine, like Yacchan said._

Fuck.

Hinata forced himself not to think about it, unwilling to cry over it for the hundredth time in a day- at this point, Hinata was plagued by his conscious telling him to be under another’s constant watch, otherwise dreams of Kenma would come and bite him in the ass. His grief wasn’t easing, and Kageyama’s open reluctance to search for him made it all the worse. Why, why couldn’t Kageyama have at least _lied?_ Didn’t it keep him and Natsu from burning holes into the guy every time he walked by, anyways...? Asshole.

No matter. Hinata knows that, even if Kenma were gone, his own faith in them would not be. Surely Kenma would give some clues as to where he went, right? He’d find Kenma, or so Hinata would find him dead against the wall.

“Yachi-san, can I ask you a favor?”

Yachi’s casual brows furrow with the weight of his words, “of course; what is it...?”

Hinata drags his duffle bag up onto his bed, the bag he’d worked so damn hard for and unzips it, gathering up a clean shirt and tossing it on the bed before pulling at the bottom of the one he was wearing currently. He tears it off over his head, leaving it on his wrists and turns to her. “Could you...”

_“... Oh._ Yeah. Sorry-”

Yachi makes an _“okay”_ symbol with her hands, looking furiously uncomfortable with topless Hinata from where she stood and avoiding eye contact by turning all the way around. “Can you _please_ start warning me when you're about to strip? I'll go blind one of these days.”

_“I'm sorry,”_ Hinata huffs, wondering whether to take offense from that or not and quickening his pace on sliding his shirt in over his head. “Anyways-”

Hinata begins collecting other dirty laundry strewn about the place- he could deny his bad habit of just leaving dirty clothing on the floor nowadays. Cleaning was his own way of avoidance as he mumbled, “could you… _please_ go through that third duffle bag some time...? Y’know, the one that’s not mine or Natsu-chan’s.”

As to be expected, he gets a confused look from Yachi. _“You haven't gone through it yet?”_

With a scratch to the back of the head, Hinata gives the lady an apologetic smile. “It's... _not ours,_ it’s Kenma’s, and I want to know what's in it before I ever go through it again. If Kenma doesn’t reappear, you know… I don't- want to actually end up breaking down, you know...?”

The look Hinata gets is painfully sympathetic and the guy brushes away his offense and puts his hands up as to say, _“it’s alright.”_

“I'm so sorry, Hinata...”

“Don’t be; I’m fine, really,” Hinata strains emphasis into his voice, “you would’ve gotten a mouthful by now if I weren’t, right? I just don’t want any bad memories sneaking up on me.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Yachi, scratching at one arm with the other, “I get it.”

Tension settles, Hinata doesn’t want Yachi getting upset over his own problems- in fact, that’s what he tries to avoid when he switches the subject so quickly: “well- you’d, _uh-_ we’d best be off now-“

_“We?”_ Yachi repeats, “where are _you_ going??”

Picking up the wad of dirty clothes he’d created, he replies with: “ahh, I’m gonna do the clothes I’ve been putting off washing for weeks now. Then... probably try something stupid.”

Frowning, Yachi picks up on his mischievous tone. “Okaaay, but pretty much everything you do is stupid and you’re even caling this one out,” she says, _“sooo, should I be worried?”_

“Eh.” Hinata shrugs, _“more or less._ I personally wouldn’t worry too much.”

And if there was anything that Hinata appreciated about Yachi was that even though she was the one with a medical degree, she let Hinata decide what he wanted to do with his injured body- which was usually the damn worst. _“I’m holding you accountable on that one,”_ Yachi replies, making her way towards the door, “you know you’ll be getting a mouthful from Sugawara-san if he has to treat so much as a flesh wound.”

“Who says I was planning on getting hurt?”

_“I’m serious, Hinata-kun.”_

_“So am I!”_

Hinata can tell by the way her head lolls back that Yachi had rolled her eyes on her way out- he thinks about it as he turns back to put his clothes in plastic bags with a smile. Damn, he really loved that girl...

“The hell did I almost just walk in on...?”

Hinata’s head picks back up as he hears Natsu’s voice along with the clicking of the door behind her. “Not a lot, sorry if it disappoints. I was complaining about Kageyama-san again.”

_“What’s new?”_ Mocks Natsu, sticking one of his shirts in the bag for him. “Talking to your crush about your other crush...”

Hinata rolls his eyes. “For the last time- you _know_ I don’t like her like that, Natsu. I’d be simping by now if I did.”

“Yeah, I know that- you would’ve held the door for her on her way out and everything. Kageyama’s a different story, though, isn’t he?”

Hinata flushes faintly. “I don’t have a crush on him, either, sheesh- just because I can admit that Yachi is cute and Kageyama is sexy doesn’t mean I like either of them,” Hinata confirms, waving her off, “but you know, you could’ve done us all a favor and warned me that Kageyama was hot that day. My initial reaction was really embarrassing.”

“I can only imagine, I’ve seen your _“you’re hot”_ stare before; you remember that one time grandpa's terrier tried to eat a toad??”

Hinata snorts. “All foaming at the mouth and shit?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Natsu helps him gather the last of it, “does Yachi know about your sexuality...? Does _anyone??”_

“Nah, but I’d be damned if they didn’t figure it out sooner or later what with the words that come out of my mouth,” he sighs, managing three bags with one hand, “I think the guys just see me spending time with Yacchan and assume I’m the most heterosexual man on the planet.”

“As if bringing up Kenma and Kageyama every chance you get isn’t enough of an indicator. But, you know I won’t say anything- I don’t like revealing your own personal information.”

“No one here even knows my first name,” muses Hinata, which pulls a solemn laugh from him afterwards. He bitched and whined about Kageyama being all mysterious, but at least people actually knew his name around here.

The pair lugs the clothes out into the hallway and immediately the faces around them pick up, smiling, throwing greetings to which the two reciprocate. However, Hinata makes sure they don’t stand still for too long- he’s got plans. “Have you moved on to gate duty, yet? I’m starting today, you know.”

_“Nah,”_ replies Natsu, “if I’m honest, I don’t mind helping Sugawara-san and such; it’s a big hotel, and just two people doing the job isn’t always the most efficient. Besides, he and Yacchan are teaching me things- and, well, _someone’s_ gotta be able to fix you up the next time you up and decide to fall out a window.”

“You act like I just decided to fall instead of jumping,” Hinata grunts, and Natsu laughs. “Doesn’t mean I won’t eventually help out, though. Think I’m getting cabin fever-“

Entering the little room where the laundromat was, ironically enough Hinata runs into the exact person he was looking for. “Asahi-san!” He greets cheerfully, and the man looks up from his washing board.

“Got any beef jerky...?”

Natsu gets incredulously quiet.

“Hey, Hinata- are you gonna eat that??”

Hinata swats at Nishinoya’s reaching hand. _“Yes,”_ he growls, defensively pulling the packet of jerky to his chest, “I’m saving it, it’s... _important.”_

“Important, huh? If it’s any less important than being in my belly, you’re gonna hear it from my fists-“

Overhead, the sun glares, forcing all of the guys minus Kinoshita who was on guard under the pitiful shade of their fence. Even still, the men were sticky with sweat and grime, slapping sunscreen whenever they felt prone enough on and switching posts at irregular intervals to keep one another from getting overheated. What a great day to start as a sentry, huh?

“I’m gonna show you guys how to use these once Kageyama-kun gets back.”

The boys stop. “I’m sorry, you’re _what?”_

_“Food porn?”_ Asks Tanaka, fiddling with the long, metal pole resting in his lap. “No,” Hinata sighs, “jerky works as biter bait- it attracts them and draws them away if they can smell it.”

“Seriously??? _That sounds dumb. Dumb lurkers.”_

“Doesn’t always work,” Hinata says, looking at the condensation droplets inside the package, “it only really works if the biters aren’t already distracted; they won’t care for scavenger meat if they’ve got prey in their sights. It’s- _how I got into that hotel with so many biters inside, if Kageyama would hear me out-_ but I don’t think he’s gonna listen to a word that I say until I prove my worth around here…”

“You shouldn’t have to _prove_ your worth here,” replies Nishinoya, very clearly annoyed, “that goes against everything this base was set up for-“

“He’s protecting you guys,” interrupts Hinata, stopping Nishinoya in his tracks, “I mean- yeah, _it sucks for me,_ but asking that big of a request of someone- hell, if someone begged me to risk my life for a week straight without and gratitude like that, I wouldn’t be so kind about it either… I didn’t even thank him for rescuing me, I was so caught up in my desperation to get my friend back.”

The guys stifle at his words, as to be expected, but before anyone can respond Kinoshita groans above them: “can someone please come take post?? I think I’m gonna _die of a heatstroke,_ holy shit.”

So much for the _“unusually harsh winter.”_ “I’ll do it,” Hinata offers immediately, rising to his feet with his jerky bag in hand. “Thanks, Hinata. Christ, I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“I’ll go, too; I don’t want you having to shoot that rifle with those healing injuries of yours,” Ennoshita offers, and, as sure as Hinata is that he can do it himself, he’s grateful for this. _“Thanks, man.”_

“It’s nothing.”

In a few short seconds, the two have taken sentry’s place, Kinoshita being wrestled to the ground within seconds. And as if the heat couldn’t get any worse, underneath the sun like this was somehow infinitely worse- but the view, the view is what really gets Hinata going.

Hinata stares at the long, seemingly endless stretch forward of road, littered with abandoned cars and scraps and the occasional distant biter. It was… serene, as serene as the apocalypse could get. The same went for the roads that forked out along their main; cluttered, but peaceful. North, East, and West… looking directly ahead of him was the direction Hinata knew he needed to go. The only place he would reach towards until he found what he was searching for.

“Hey, did you guys forget to reload the gun?” Ennoshita calls, and Tanaka responds, “aren’t there extra shells up there??”

“Yeah, but they’re for the wrong kind of rifle,” sighs Ennoshita, and Hinata empathizes- must suck being the only one with a decent knowledge of guns around here. Not their fault Japan had such strict gun laws before the apocalypse.

“Damn it, _fine-_ give me a minute to go reload this, I don’t want to send Nishinoya back there just to grab the wrong kind another four times,” says Ennoshita, and Hinata laughs, not thinking about what might happen in the short amount of time that Ennoshita would be gone. “Alright, man.”

In seconds, Ennoshita’s gone with their gun, leaving Hinata to tune out the guys’ shouting and be able to breathe without someone being down his neck for once. And, as everything got fuzzy, Hinata realizes he’s mentally alone. It’s quiet up there right now, and not in a bad way, for once- _Hinata feels mental contentment for the first time since losing Kenma._

The sound of his own breathing is all that Hinata hears for those few seconds, allowing his eyes to close and face to accept his first real smile in a while- for once, Hinata’s happy with the lack of noise. _‘Maybe, once my wounds heal up, I can get Ennoshita to teach me how to shoot so he won’t be so alone…’_

But then, a new sound in the distance begins echoing off the sides of the buildings, interrupting Hinata’s peace. It takes a moment to register through the walls of Hinata’s eased brain, but once it does, Hinata’s eyes reopen and he finds his smile slowly turning into a frown. His senses strain, trying to pick up more.

“... huh?”

Hinata’s body gets increasingly more tense while, below him, the guys seem oblivious, drawing dicks in the sand and cackling at a story Tanaka was telling. But Hinata can hear them- long before he sees them, he hears them. Footsteps- not just one pair, but many. The redhead rises to his feet, the breeze pushing his hair to the side and messing with his ears; he brushes his bangs back to his head, staring.

It doesn’t take hin long to figure it out.

Kageyama’s there, running full speed, an entire horde of those running motherfuckers in his wake- Hinata counts at least six, every last biter able to keep pace with Kageyama. They must’ve turned recently to be able to keep pace with Kageyama this well. How had Kageyama managed to find so many…?

_‘Holy shit-‘_

The jerky bag falls to the platform then slides to the ground and Hinata’s hands flex in terror. The biters were fast, but Kageyama should be so much faster…

Yet, they’re right on his ass. “Hinata, you dropped-“

“Tanaka-san…”

His voice is hushed and annunciated, a hand reaching down without his eyes leaving Kageyama. _“Give me that metal bar of yours.”_

Pausing for the millisecond longed than Hinata would've liked him to, Hinata watches Kageyama stumble and the biters gain on him hard. His heart plummets. “What-“

The redhead wheels around, desperation fueling the panic in his voice; “give me the fucking pole, _now!!!!”_

Tanaka tosses it up without further question and Hinata grabs it on the fly. In the split seconds before his feet leave the ground, he hears his name being screeched: _“Hinata??!!”_

Déja vù overwhelms him for a good whole second; visions of rooftops beneath his feet, Hinata knows exactly what to do. His muscles relax, balls of his feet shifting outwards, preparing to cushion his landing-

Hinata’s feet hit the ground already spinning, painlessly, rushing at the horde with an overwhelming surge of determination, an energy that he didn’t know still existed inside of his untoned body. His scream pierces the air dry air: _“Kageyama!!!”_

Hinata sees the guy hit the ground, telling by the way his movement is fluid that he’d tried to coordinate it into a roll but it doesn’t work for shit. His efforts aren’t in vain, though- Kageyama’s foot lashes out and snags the nearest one of them, taking it out with him, but _fuck-_ Hinata can already see the way that Kageyama had skinned up the side of his arm, all the way along his bicep and tricep, ouch. Hinata wondered if he even felt his pain right now. _‘There are so damn many, what the hell is this…?’_

There’s no way Hinata’s going to make it in time, they’re too close.

A biter goes down on the fallen Kageyama and Hinata feels his anxiety peak until realizing that just because Kageyama was down doesn’t mean he wasn’t still fighting for his life. The moment its mouth opens, the raven-haired man bashes its face in with a nearby rock, tossing its body into the one that still scrambled on the ground to get up. Hinata doesn’t allow the increasingly tight pain in his ribs to slow him down, snarling through the feeling, forcing his unprimed legs to push harder if it meant death. He was covering ground fast, but he needed to be _faster-_

_“Fuck!!”_

Another biter collapses onto Kageyama, pushing the guy down onto his back this time, clinging to life just by the throat- _literally._ About a foot away from his face, the biter hisses and spits, prevented from tearing Kageyama open only by Kageyama’s hands clasped around its throat. Hinata can see Kageyama seething with effort, blood seeping from the open wound that was driving the biters into a frenzy-

But Hinata’s too close to let Kageyama die now. Despite his ribs’ weary protest, again he shrieks, “Kageyama!!”

Hinata sees Kageyama’s face tilt towards him. Kageyama doesn’t look surprised or offended that, of all people, Hinata was the one who came to his rescue.

In fact, if there was any underlying message Hinata got from that quick exchange of glances, it was _“help me.”_

Grabbing the pole with two hands, Hinata screams as he raises it to the side of his head like he had so many times before. The biter’s dull, gooey eyes move to Hinata just in time to examine the dangerously furious face that Hinata sported and the weapon that would take its life. With the bundling of muscle, Hinata brings the pole crashing down onto the temple of that biter, feeling its skull crack beneath his swing, showering the redhead with rotting bone and flesh and brain-

Hinata grins. _“Heh.”_ Still had it in him.

The biter collapses to the side of Kageyama on impact, twitching, very much dead- but Hinata couldn’t slow himself down, the momentum had carried him too far. Hinata bowls into another biter, managing to use it as leverage to throw off his inertia and rebound, metal pole nearly flying out of his hand as he scrabbles to catch his footing. Hinata could only trust that Kageyama wasn’t hurt because he didn’t have time to check up on him- in fact, Hinata didn’t even have the time to check up on _himself._ Another gnashing face backs his unprepared ass into the side of a car, one end of his weapon slamming into the glass and shattering the window behind him. Damn, that metal was _hot-_ the moment Hinata regains his senses, he finds his hands lurching forward to keep those horrid teeth from sinking into his shoulders, fending it off not one but two biters with his bar against their throats.

Even through his desperation and fear, Hinata doesn’t have the strength to push the two back- these biters were stronger than usual, and he resorts to holding his ground with shaking arms. _‘Think, damn it-‘_

The biters’ hands grab and tear at the fabric of Hinata’s clothing, their scent so strong Hinata wanted to vomit- how had he forgotten how horrible they smelled? Hinata’s arms were beginning to throb and buckle, _‘what would Kenma do?’_

And that’s when Hinata’s eyes flit downwards, looking for one’s knee. He thinks about the hotel raid, how he’d managed to swipe one’s leg out- again, he pulls the same move, lashing at one’s knee while lurching forward with the bar while it was weakened. One stumbles, the other falls, but they’re both much too close for a full swing. Hinata grabs at the glass from the damaged window and charges at the one remaining, screaming, finding the glass’s flattened end before ramming a jagged point into the biter's eye. “Go back to hell where you _belong!!”_

Splinters erupt into a fresh gash in Hinata’s hand but it’s worth it as he sees the blood gush from the biter’s eye socket, the other hand gripping to what little hair remained in its skull, listening to it howl in pain and do practically nothing to stop it. Huh, it was in _shock._

Hinata could feel less.

The eye pops and the pressure on the glass slackens as the biter gets shoved to the ground, not dead but wounded close to it, and-

“Hey, _dumbass!”_ A voice calls, _“duck!!!”_

_“Huh?!!”_

Hinata turns to him just in time to see something fly past his head, knicking through the locks of his hair. Shortly after, something collapses into him, and Hinata jumps back only to find a biter limp in its movements, dead, a throwing knife caught smack in the center of its forehead. Hinata watches with his eyes wide as it flops to the ground; there’s blood, blood _everywhere._ But it’s a deep brown, the bloodshed of biters, not humans. Hinata turns back.

Kageyama stares at him from afar, heaving for the breath he’d lost and clutching at a skinned, bloodied arm. Hinata comes to realize their postures mirror, and that he himself is doing the same, only with his hand.

_‘Holy fuck.’_

Hinata doesn’t smile, he’s too exhausted, but they had just done _that._

The heat makes it even harder to breathe as their mouths suck in air, stinging in the redheads throat and mouth, their eyes never leaving one another’s. Hinata doesn’t know what he’s is thinking nor what he feels, he’d been so fried from adrenaline, but even as irritated as Kageyama looked at him right now, this atmosphere was far different from the last time he and Kageyama had locked eyes.

_“Damn it, Hinata…”_ Kageyama utters his name through heaving breaths and slowly makes his way over the bodies. One shifts under his weight and Kageyama responds with a vicious blow to its head with the heel, thick brown blood oozing from shoes that had already been stained such a color. Even in his exhaustion, Kageyama had a strength to him- some unprecedented phenomenon. _‘Asshole.’_

Hinata shrinks away as Kageyama gets all too far into his personal space, grabbing at the collar of his shirt. “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing…?”

But his words almost seem a little less provocative this time. Some might argue that it was because Kageyama was tired- _but Hinata,_ personally, _didn’t think so._ Hinata looks Kageyama straight in the eyes this time, that initial wave of confidence he’d felt on his first day returning and returning with strength. “You save my ass, I save yours.” Hinata winks. “Good karma, bitch.”

“You’re a fucking _dumbass.”_

_“Dumbass, huh?”_ Hinata dampens his cracking lips with the flick of a tongue. _“Sounds exotic.”_

Kageyama’s eyelids droop and he makes this face like he’s going to slug him, so Hinata’s completely flustered when Kageyama lets him go. “Were you hurt?”

Woah, okay- who was _this...?_

“I’m- _fine,”_ Hinata sputters, watching as Kageyama pulled his knives from the biters’ bodies, “I mean other than my hand and my mental state, I’m good… _a-actually, hang on-“_

Hinata gags, placing his hands on his knees as he heaves and proceeds to throw up onto the concrete, his saliva white and dry. Those damn smells didn’t help, either, and god- now that his adrenaline has worn off, his ribs were killing him. _“Fu-huck,”_ Hinata spits through a gasp of air, wiping away the remnants from the corners of his mouth.

“Hey,” Hinata hears Kageyama grumble. The raven-haired man is looking at him from over his shoulder, adjusting the bag on his back, “we don’t have time to dawdle.”

Rolling his eyes, Hinata snorts: “me throwing my guts up is _really considered dawdling to you...?_ ”

“No, but you’re fine now, aren’t you?” Kageyama gestures faintly, _“get a move on._ You need to get in to Sugawara and I don’t want to be at fault for all this-“

_‘That wound on his arm looks damn nasty,’_ notes Hinata, feeling his own hand throbbing. Hinata huffs and stands up straight, arching his back, acting as if he _totally_ hadn’t just vomited a few seconds ago. “Okay, damn- not even a _thank you?_ ”

Hinata has said that in a sarcastic tone, but he’s not sure Kageyama followed. The guy pauses for a second, giving Hinata the time to catch up to him. _“Thank you, Hinata.”_

“Excuse me, _what??”_

Hinata pauses, irritated by the way his heart rattled, “uhh- _hellooo?”_ Hinata gives him an annoying, experimental prod, “is Kageyama in there??”

Kageyama’s lip curls, “shut up, damn it. It’s been twenty seconds and you’re already pushing your damn luck.”

_‘Yeah, no need to worry- Kageyama’s still here, alright.’_

But, inevitably, Hinata grins. Kageyama hadn’t denied him this time, which he counted as overall progress. His ribs hurt like hell and that wound on his hand may be there by the time his arm completely heals, but it might just be worth it to Hinata.

“Hey, Kageyama...?”

Hinata bounds up to Kageyama, smiling at the glowering look he received for doing so. “What _now-“_

“Thank you for saving me, too. I never got a chance to thank you in the first place because I was so caught up in my own little world, which I’m sorry for.” Hinata puts up a pair of fingers, “but that’s _twice,_ now.”

And the look Hinata receives at his attempts to be friendly confirms it all; Kageyama isn’t used to getting thank-yous, nor apologies. And, once again, Hinata hears Kageyama’s real voice, unintoxicated with anger or irritation; “It’s… _nothing special,”_ the guy mutters, avoiding his gaze with a glare a little too soft around its edges. “Don’t take it personally.”

“Well, since I was totally kickass and just saved your life back there, could we, y’know,” Hinata gestures vaguely, _“talk sometime...?”_

“About what?”

He didn’t sound particularly delighted, but the fact he doesn’t get denied immediately raises his spirits. The guys are shouting at them in the distance, but the two pay no mind. “Apocalypse things, I guess. I think I might have a solution to your _taking too long to explore_ ordeal.”

Kageyama doesn’t look at him but his eyes shift in color. “You have a damn annoying personality.”

“Gee; _thanks._ That’s not answering my question, dickwad.”

Kageyama huffs an unamused laugh through his nose. _“Depends on if it’s something I wanna hear,”_ he answers simply, and Hinata laughs back, wiping sweat-glazed strands of hair out of his eyes, looking up at the sun settling just above their heads.

_“You’re not gonna be disappointed.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit you actually made it to the bottom what the fuck? thank you so fucking much, “that’s twice now.” this means it is once again self promo time lol follow ra


	3. well, it’s something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (after two chapters the fucker finally gets mildly entertaining that’s it that’s the plot.)
> 
> Kageyama isn’t the greatest at processing emotions. And, as it turns out, Hinata isn’t the best at processing erections. What a duo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter actually had to be split up into “two parts” (at least in my brain) because it’s beta ended up being far too long on top of the fact that i wanted to insert a scene that i believe is going to beef up the chapter by a few thousand words longer.
> 
> while this chapter is by no means short (it’s still 20k words lmao oops) i think i am going to be chopping up the chapters in order to get updates out quicker so the next chapter may very well be “““only””” around 10-15k- dont cross your fingers on that one though because i really expected chapter one‘s rewrite would slim it down and instead it gained an extra 2k words KDNDKSF. i don’t guarantee that promise for every last chapter though because even with this chapter it felt very weird to cut it off where i did just because I’m accustomed to it NOT ending there, so we might have an imbalance of 10k-30k words per chapter. writer moment.
> 
> but yeah, in all seriousness, with the school year coming to a close for me and the fact that im going to be cutting chapters, we’ll hope for more frequent updates ;) (as if me writing the length of a child’s novel every two or so months isn’t fast enough.)

_‘This goddamn kid-‘_

_Kageyama feels his strength slapping away with each and every step he takes, but even through his exhaustion, Kageyama knew there would be no such thing as stopping for a break. Not a five minute one, not even a five second one._

_This guy would be dead if he were to stop._

_‘C’mon, Tobio,’ he urges internally, ‘push fucking harder.’_

_God damn, why hadn’t they just left those bags at the scene; he knows that at this point, not even the girl next to him wouldn’t care much for them if it meant their lives. Kageyama just wanted to get home, be safe and sound- why didn’t he have it in it to drop them? Damn it..._

_Kageyama’s head was warm, his lungs were warm, his throat was tight and his breath was warm- not a place on Kageyama’s body that wasn’t warm except for the guy he carried in his hands. Warm hands, warm blood, cold body. Next to him, the girl was no better, panting with an exhausted gait. Kageyama’s spit was white and frothy, holding a rather unpleasant taste. He needed water._

_But this kid needed an entire damn hospital. Kageyama could catch his breath later, this guy might not get that chance if Kageyama didn’t hurry his ass up. “Damn it,” Kageyama wastes his breath and curses under the devastating heat of the sun, “god fucking damn it.”_

_This shit fucking sucked, but his brain didn’t really run through that because he knew he was doing the right thing. Somewhere deep inside of Kageyama, past his overwhelming exhaustion, knowing that the guy he carried had a heartbeat, a mind, and a desire to live just as Kageyama did gave Kageyama the energy to keep pushing. ‘Just a little longer,’ he’d think. This guy and his sister- they were human, just like him._

_Kageyama was fighting for this guy's life just as hard as the incacipated was at that moment._

_Through the pain and heat, Kageyama would go to any extent if they were human. If it meant collapsing from overexhaustion, so be it; he’d rather be able to say that he tried his damndest than give up for just that fraction’s worth of a second._

_Gray blots his vision as Kageyama fades in and out, suppressing the urge to vomit. ‘Just a little bit longer,’ he notions not only to himself but to the girl on his heels, the wounded man in his clutches as he rounds the block, ‘hang in there for just a little bit longer…’_

_He swears he sees the guy’s lips twitch after this. Though, not like he could see that well to begin with. ‘Just a little bit longer.’_

_”I’m Hinata.”’_

The air feels… strange.

It’s not cluttered with tension, not heavy with silence; just abnormal. The atmosphere’s off just enough to be noticeable, pertaining to words Kageyama didn’t have in his vocabulary, but… he felt out of place for no rational reason.

Kageyama blinks over to the red-headed kid sitting on the other bed a couple of feet away from him, Yachi tending to the wound he’d received on his hand. A subliminal frown crosses the raven-haired man’s face, seeing them both fallen, refusing to meet one another’s gazes- they hadn’t said a word to one another yet.

_“... what happened to not getting hurt?”_

Hinata seems to buckle at this, relieving the tension between them that silence brought; “I hadn’t _planned_ on getting hurt…”

“Wait till Natsu finds out-“

_“Do you have to rub it in??!”_

_‘That goddamn kid.’_

Hinata has now given his Kageyama his first impression of himself: _spastic, annoying, relentless._ The very way the guy _spoke_ managed to dig beneath Kageyama’s skin; he’s got this attitude to him, fiery and passionate, all full of himself… Kageyama thinks he’s full of shit, if anything.

His face is sort of rounded, Kageyama notes, not entirely shapeless but lacking any extremely distinctive features minus the carrot-top mop on his head. And his eyes, he had big eyes for a guy his age- he actually got more effeminate the more you looked at him.

_‘There’s not a single damn thing I like about this guy.’_

The raven-haired man scopes out Hinata’s arms a little bit more. He located old scars and bruises, ripples in- well, _everywhere_ where muscle had once been. This guy hadn’t exactly been a lightweight when Kageyama carried him home that day- if he hadn’t been so concerned about the blood staining his hands, he would’ve recognized how athletic Hinata had been built that day.

Looks were deceiving with that devil Hinata. The way he moved after being out of it for three weeks…

The redhead’s eyes look up at Yachi; they’re pitiful, genuinely sorry, accompanied by slackened eyebrows and a perked lip. Such soft, rounded brown eyes… were these really the same hard, vicious eyes he’d seen minutes before?

Those soft brown eyes were the same eyes that could freeze hell over if they really wanted to.

_‘“You save my ass, I save yours. Good karma, bitch.”’_

His athletic ability, his reflexes, his fearlessness… all wrapped up in the easiest-going personality on the planet. Kageyama squints.

_‘Who the fuck does he he think he is?’_

“This is going to sting a little, Kageyama-kun.”

Taken abruptly from his thoughts, Kageyama winces and expresses his pain through a clenched hiss as Sugawara rubbed some sort of salve into his wound. It was cold, and _“sting a little”_ was an understatement. Kageyama hates this shit, hated having other people fix him up- not that he was ungrateful, just hated how vulnerable it made him feel, the whole _“you did something stupid”_ shmeal. No one got seriously injured on purpose.

“Thank you,” grunts Kageyama, and Sugawara backs away to reach for something else in his little box- Kageyama prayed it was surgical wrap so that he could be done with this bullshit. There’s a honied chuckle he gets from Sugawara in response to his thank you and Kageyama’s eyelids droop. He knows what’s about to come next. _“Kageyama-kun…”_

Sunlight trickled through the window of the room, illuminating particles of dust drifting through the air; nighttime was drawing closer. It takes Kageyama everything not to snarl as Sugawara’s voice begins getting lower and more serious; it always did that. “This wound is… _kind of bad,_ Kageyama. I think you should, you know, wait a day or two before-“

“I’m not staying, Sugawara,” sighs Kageyama, unable to hide the very evident exasperation in his voice. _“You know I won’t.”_

_‘This wound isn’t that damn bad and everyone in this room knows it. I know what they want from me.’_

The doctor’s eyebrows twitch as he makes eye contact with the floor, evident he’d expected this but didn’t have much to back it up. Kageyama can feel Hinata and Yachis’ gazes ravenously eating him up from the side but it didn’t bother him- Kageyama was just speaking his mind, if they judged him, who the hell cared?

“Kageyama… that’s- I-“

“Look, _I know what you’re doing, I’m not a fucking dumbass._ You guys want to coop me up here so that Dai-san can bitch and whine about things I already know I need to work on,” growls Kageyama, “you guys need to have more faith in me when I say that _I know what I’m doing-_ would we know about the ever-looming threat of thousands of lurkers massacring our home if I were to stop what I was doing-“

 _“Stop getting so defensive,”_ Sugawara interrupts, “you think that every time you get this talk that we’re going to tell you to stop whatever the hell you're doing out there when that’s _not it._ We value you, Kageyama, not matter what way you choose to do things-“

_“Stop saying shit I wanna hear-“_

“-there just needs to be a happy medium for all of us!” Sugawara yells over his retort, and Kageyama piped down with a bite to the tongue. “I don’t like hearing everyone complain about you, Kageyama, but you and I _both_ know what it is that you have to fix… yet you don’t do it. We’re running so low on materials to build up that wall that we’ve nearly dried everything up within a mile’s radius of this place- supplies, resources, _everything else_ can be held out on for a little while, but please- just get what those guys ask for.”

The raven-haired man just bristles at Sugawara’s patience- _why wasn’t he screaming at him at this point?_ Surely he was frustrated…

“Besides,” the man continues, “that scrape of yours really is kind of nasty- you don’t want to lose a whole arm due to an infection, do you? Stay here for a day or two, Kageyama- use the time for while we’re decked out in supplies.”

A deep hiss emits from the back of Kageyama's throat of which he struggles to keep down; something about Sugawara-san had always made Kageyama feel uncomfortable, how he could utter the darkest words yet speak them in a tone so candied and sweet. Bittersweet.

He watches as the man retrieve the wrap for his arm and considers shuffling away like some damn bratty teenager but he doesn’t; the last thing he wants is for this to take long enough to manage another lecture from Sugawara-san. Salve pushes deep into his wound and the man stiffens as the burn begins to ignite once again- if he’s honest, though, it pulls some stress from out of him. Kageyama can already feel it, his irritation- all he can’t think about is how much he hated it here, how anxious he was to get _out._ No one was appreciative, no one was respectful- it pissed him off. Most people didn’t even take the time to make eye contact…

_“‘Thank you, Kageyama.”’_

Kageyama’s glare redirects to the redhead, who, ironically enough, was already staring back. He doesn’t break eye contact, either, makes it blatantly obvious he was staring him down; Kageyama just squints at him, making sure his glare sharpened before he looks away.

That guy was weird.

“There,” muses Sugawara, “good as new, eh?”

Kageyama experimentally rolls his shoulder, wincing from the pain it creates. _‘Fuck it,’_ he thinks, _‘I’ll feel better by tomorrow.’_

“Thank you, Sugawara-san,” Kageyama forces.

_‘What a half-assed thank you. Dick.’_

Staring Kageyama down, Hinata slouches over with a palm resting on his cheek to hold himself upright, somewhat in a trance as he finally manages another good look down of Kageyama- this time without his own tongue to fuck hinself over. Hinata hadn’t seen Kageyama in a relaxed state before, nor had he been bold enough to even look in his direction and keep it. It’s still the same damn Kageyama, though- _smoking hot piece of shit with an attitude you could smell if you tried hard enough,_ but god- subtracting the wounds of new and old, Kageyama did have a really nice body. The kind where Kageyama didn’t even have to be flexing and you could still see the bumps of muscle in his arms, the lines in his neck were more distinguishable. Broad shoulders, slim stomach- Hinata can’t tell if he’s jealous or just gay. He thinks it’s somewhat of both.

One thing was for sure, though- Kageyama couldn’t have built that body up in just a handful of weeks. It made Hinata wonder just what it was he did for a living before the fallout… or, hell- maybe he’d actually dedicated himself to the gym before the fallout- some people actually did that, unlike he and Kenma.

_‘No accessories though, huh? No wedding ring or- who am I kidding this fucker’s not married, but he’s gotta be hiding something, right?’_

“Kageyama, I’m telling you…” Hinata’s head picks up at Sugawara’s pleading, “please don’t leave, at least not for today. I’m concerned about you, you know?”

Hinata jolts from his daze when Kageyama rises to his feet, looking more than ready to head out that door. _‘Wait, wait, hold on-‘_

The redhead looks frantically between the two of them as he struggles to find what he wants to say, _‘what is it with me and being tongue-tied around Kageyama?’_ The redhead knows that the moment he got the chance, Kageyama would be out of those doors in a heartbeat; and just because he saved Hinata’s life doesn’t mean he’d spare the same generosity another day. Kageyama was in a good state to talk to, and this may as well be Hinata’s only opportunity before the guy’s walls close up again.

Hinata absolutely had to get inside that head of Kageyama’s if he ever wanted outside again.

Hinata hears Yachi go to say his name right as he flings himself to his feet, _“Kageyama-“_

 _‘Shit.’_ The redhead pauses with a grunt, pressing a hand to his side as his ribs object to his movements. Yachi goes to his aid in seconds, “fuck- I mean, ow-“

“You.”

Hinata hears Kageyama say that word like they’re meeting all over again and it makes Hinata roll his eyes. “Yeah, _me,_ dramatic ass.” He speaks his own name with the utmost annoyance, _“Hinata.”_

Kageyama turns to him more, “what do _you_ want?”

“Can we… _y’know-“_

The guy takes the hint rather quickly. “Like I said, it depends on if it’s stuff I wanna hear.” Kageyama frowns in a way that makes Hinata think it’s his processing face, judging him, underestimating him. Slitted eyes that make Hinata wilt into a more defensive posture seem to examine his every cue, awaiting his next move. “I’m not much for talking,” Kageyama says, “but I think you know that by now.”

The redhead’s head tilts upwards, illustrating through posture that there’s not a single bone in his body that trembled at Kageyama like the others’ did. Hinata cracks that toothy grin of his, the kind he knew stuck under people’s skin like thorns, the exact way to hook and prod at Kageyama’s overly conceited insides; “maybe you’ve just never met someone like me before, then, eh?”

And deep do his words cut; Hinata gives Kageyama a grin with lidded eyes in response to the intensification of his resting bitch face. _“You really piss me off, you know that?”_

“Well, can’t say the feeling isn’t mutual.” Hinata’s chest puffs a little as he struts towards Kageyama, bold and slow, knowing he was getting his way one way or another. For the first time ever, Hinata’s the one invading Kageyama’s personal space with a sour grin, seeing his own death in a million different ways flashing through Kageyama’s eyes. “I’d buy you a drink if we weren’t in some stupid apocalypse.”

Kageyama glares him down, so close that the two had to crane their necks to make up for the difference in height. “If we weren’t in some stupid apocalypse, I’d be making sure I was eight thousand miles away from wherever you are,” retorts Kageyama. Hinata laughs a little, nor amused in the slightest.

“That was good, I’ll admit,” compliments Hinata, patting Kageyama on the shoulder before jostling last him in line for the door, hearing Kageyama snarl at Hinata before they-

“Hold on, _wait!”_

The pair both stop to the sound of Sugawara’s voice, “you two are just gonna- _talk??_ What the hell do _you two_ have to talk about???”

Riiight, probably not something Sugawara wanted to hear after Kageyama’s insistent denial in talking to their group leader. “Is it something you’re going to share with Daichi or the guys? _Me???”_

But Sugawara isn’t the only one that’s good at reading people; Hinata recognizes damn near immediately Sugawara’s fear of what would happen if you left the two of them alone in a room together… he snorts. He knew he could handle himself, just he and Satan alone- that’s how Hinata needed this situation. “The things I plan on discussing don’t really pertain to you or anyone else but Kageyama-kun,” the redhead says, “so, no, we are not going to talk with anyone else. I’ll leave it to Kageyama to decide what he wants to do with my information.”

And Sugawara’s face drops, like he hadn’t expected this blow to come from Hinata of all people. There’s a part of Hinata that feels bad, the part of him that respects Sugawara and knows Sugawara is just trying to help; but then the other half of him, his twisted, more assertive side- it felt no remorse. No matter the status, Hinata was bound and determined to make sure that these people saw him as their equal. He wouldn’t let his injuries leave him in the dust.

_“Hey!”_

Yachi approaches with an intimidatingly serious face; “if that’s the case, either if you hurt one another and you’re gonna hear it from me,” she snaps, “I’m already on bad terms with you, Hinata-kun-“

Hinata sighs deeply, pouting. _‘Maaan,’_ is exactly what Hinata echoes, _‘now my relationship with Yachi is on the line.’_

“Of course, Yacchan,” Hinata replies with a dip of the head, “Kageyama and I will keep things civil- that means no ass-kickings, _you hear that, Kageyama-kun??”_

His words earn him a harsh glare as Kageyama realizes he’d been roped into whatever pact Yachi had just made. “Yeah, sure. It’s- _whatever.”_

Hinata smiles politely, his genuinity lying somewhere between true and false, wiping his hands together to wipe at “dust” that had never even been there in the first place. “Now then, where to? North lobby, or the-“

_“My room, stat.”_

Eyebrows twitching, Hinata finds his offer hard not to receive shock out of. “Oh- _okay!_ That is a- uh, _rather conspicuous place to have an ass-kicking,_ but whatever you say, Kageyama-san-“

Shouldering past him, as if Kageyama hadn’t made his shitty attitude clear enough, a hand presses back into Hinata’s chest to ensure that Hinata remained behind him as he pulls the door open. Hinata follows his lead, sulking, taking a quick and final glance back at Sugawara before turning back to ensure Kageyama wasn’t about to slam his head in the door or something. He shoots the two of them a fake chuckle, seeing the concern in their faces before quietly stepping out into the hallway; Hinata can already hear Kageyama muttering to himself quietly as Hinata feels his back press into the door. _‘Just get it shut, aaaaanndd…’_

As soon as he hears door clicks shut, as if it's an audio cue, the redhead lunges at Kageyama.

Taken by surprise, Hinata runs Kageyama back with the clenching of the shirt collar until he has him against the opposite wall. To his shock, Kageyama doesn’t even fight back when he comes to his senses, no more than a distasteful snarl. _“You listen here, you pompous prick,”_ Hinata hisses into his neck, “you start shit over _anything_ I have to say without reason and I’ll make sure the next few lines you speak are with blood coming from your mouth, you got that?”

Kageyama scoffs. _“You’re_ gonna hurt _me?”_ Hinata's surprised that his words only process about a half of a second after his own, “you go up to my chin- what’re you gonna do once I go after you, huh? _Crawl in a vent???”_

Hinata begins shaking at him and Kageyama’s hands clasped over Hinata’s, “you piece of shit motherfucker I am _five foot seven_ and a _half-“_

“Kageyama? Hinata?? Are you two alright?”

With the click of the door Sugawara pokes his head through the cracks and immediately Hinata whips his arms out only to wrap them around his torso. Kageyama’s muscles tense in mortification as Hinata squeezes him, lifting his arms up in an attempt to reduce the space between them and it only makes it worse; _“what’re you-“_

The redhead sticks an _“okay”_ symbol up with one hand, his head half buried in Kageyama’s armpit, “peachy!”

Sugawara stares with wide eyes, clearly awaiting answers that Hinata didn’t have and Kageyama lacked the social skills to be able to generate. Hinata nearly breaks out into a sweat over it. _“Are you fucking kidding me…?”_

Thankfully, Sugawara doesn’t need the convincing- instead, he slowly turns around and lets the door squeak shut behind him, his eyes echoing something like that of trauma.

_“What the fuck??!”_

Hinata bats at Kageyama’s hands as the guy grips at his hair and peels Hinata off of his body like a bandaid, “the _fuck_ was that???”

 _“I panicked, okay?!”_ Hinata rubs at the tender spots on his head, “that was supposed to be a cover up- like a hug, or- _something-“_

“You put your face in people’s pits and hug ‘em from the side??”

“The fuck you want me to say?? Family-friendly pickpocketing????”

Kageyama rolls his eyes. “We would’ve been better off just _confronting_ Sugawara about-“

“No way,” interrupts Hinata, “nuh-uh, I am _not_ breaking my promise with Yacchan- at least not openly.”

“So, do you expect me to deal with whatever stupid shit you pull out of your ass _every_ time we get into a fight??

“No, because there’s not _going_ to be a next time, _right??”_ Hinata brushes himself off, “I know you’re a big brute that doesn’t like much for conversation, but we’re gonna get all this over with before we resort to tearing one another’s heads off, okay?”

Kageyama just leans back into the wall, arms crossed, “you _really_ think that’s gonna happen?”

Hinata just shrugs. “Maybe. After all, you’ve never met someone like me, have you?”

He sees Kageyama stifle. Hinata doesn’t know what it means, but he’s glad to get a reaction from him. He shoos the man with the flick of a wrist- “now, _scoot-_ we’ve got business to be attending to.”

“Listen here, Hinata.” Kageyama’s lips still curl but he speaks a little softer, though Hinata finds his words don’t come out any less rude: “as far as you are concerned, _I_ am the leader of this place, alright? You’re going to tell me whatever it is you wanna say and then never, _ever_ get in my fucking way ever again. _Ever._ Got that?”

“Aww, but who’s gonna be there to kick ass the next time you find yourself in impeccable danger?” Whines Hinata.

“Don’t act like you’re sitting on some high horse because you managed to fend off less than what I deal daily,” Kageyama retorts bitterly, “that very easily could’ve been Tanaka-san or Nishinoya-san. You’re not anything special, you can be replaced.”

Hinata hears the brunt end of Kageyama’s words: _‘your death means nothing.’_

Hinata takes his first few steps backwards with his bangs hanging over his face. He knows by the way Kageyama uproots and begins to move again that he thinks he’s won, but Hinata isn’t one to step down from an argument.

“Then why did you save me?”

Kageyama halts as Hinata continues, “because you felt like it was your responsibility? What was really going through that head of yours, Kageyama-kun, if you really went through the hassle of saving a dying person you felt could be _replaced…?”_

“I wanted to appease Nishinoya-san,” Kageyama responds gruffly, but Hinata knows. He knows by the way his voice faults that maybe, just maybe… _that isn’t his real reasoning._ He shakes his head. “Whatever, I don’t have the time or the patience for this-“

“Well, Sugawara-san said you’re gonna be here a while.”

“And you really think I’m listening to that bullshit? _Idiot._ As long as I’m not physically enabled, there’s no stopping me.”

“What’s your obsession with being outside so much?”

“What’s your obsession with asking me so many damn questions-“

“Because you never even gave me the chance to fucking speak!!!”

Kageyama’s anger doesn't fault, but Hinata’s does. Shortly after, he rubs at his throat gingerly, feeling the way that it stung- he _hated_ angry screams. Meanwhile, Kageyama continued his bristling and seething, looming over the redhead, _“Hinata-“_

 _“Hey.”_ The man stops abruptly as Hinata adds quietly, “lets go.” Hinata thinks that Kageyama’s taken aback by this, even though his expression hardly shifts- Kageyama’s not very expressive in any way shape or form, not even did his eyes seem to reveal anything, which has forever been Hinata’s way of interpreting Kenma and Natsus’ moods. But now, Hinata has _this guy-_ a stone cold exterior with a stone cold interior.

_‘This guy is gonna be like opening up Pandora’s box.’_

Staring down the door in front of him, Sugawara stares for a little bit longer than he himself seemed necessary. He stares and he stares… it’s just _him,_ after all. _‘Just fucking him.’_

Gathering his confidence as his insecurities broke, Sugawara taps the front of the door with the back of his hand then cracks open the door.

_“Dai-san?”_

Before he even hears Daichi, he’s greeted by the loud clunk of a glass, a glass accompanied by the heavy reek of alcohol. _“Suga-san,”_ Daichi greets with a voice full of genuine enthusiasm, “come in.”

Sugawara does as commanded, letting the door close gently behind him. The room is how it usually is- lights off, letting only the open curtain filter light through… Sugawara knows how much Daichi dislikes too much artificial light. The silver-haired man doesn't smell much, not much more than the liquor- he’d grown so accustomed to it, to the alcohol and the blood and the grime that whatever odor Daichi carried didn’t phase him any more.

Daichi is sitting on the edge of his bed, facing the opposite direction of the door. He’s got that damned bandana wrapped around his face again, Sugawara can see the red knot tied behind his head from where he stood. His face tilts in Suga’s direction; “any… _deaths yet…?”_

Sugawara flashes a gentle grin and moves towards him, his head shaking his answer even though he knew Daichi wasn’t looking, “not since that very first lady about a month ago- no complaints yet about rations, either; it’s pretty tame here. Life’s good, as of… _right now.”_

“That's good. What about Kiyoko-san, you talked to her lately?”

“She’s been doing really well with the kids- a couple still put up a fight, but most of them she’s tamed down past the denial stage- I don’t talk to her much, but I hear it all from Yacchan. We haven’t had a new one pop up since that first week.”

“How many orphans does that make now…?”

 _“Eleven, I think.”_ Sugawara mused with a heavy heart, “let’s pray that Kageyama doesn’t bring in any more.”

Sugawara settles down next to him on the bed, staring. The silver-haired man is sure he’s obvious but still, Daichi refuses to meet his eyes, not even a tilt in his direction. They remain transfixed on the glass in his fingers, watching a golden brown liquid swirl beneath his movements, reeking of something toxic. His eyelids are low; “you came here to talk about something, didn’t you?” Sugawara doesn’t even see his mouth move through that damn cloth.

Glad to be cutting to the chase, Sugawara just nods. “It’s… _Hinata._ The older one, not Natsu.” Without knowing his first name, _“Hinata”_ had become the elder brother’s name to the hotel, while the girl was identified by her first name.

“Hinata, huh?” Daichi lets out a chuckle, amusement nowhere to be heard in his tone, “little disappointing I haven’t met the kid, yet…”

 _“Well,”_ Sugawara giggles, “I wouldn’t feel too harshly; the kid’s too far up Kageyama’s ass to settle down and talk to anyone, yet- except maybe Yachi-san. We all get a little sprinkle here and there, but for the most part, he’s quiet, keeps information short... yet, he has this _way_ of talking and talking until you say one wrong thing and he _shuts down._ Made friends with damn near everybody and we still don’t know a thing about the guy.”

Daichi laughs and sets his glass on the counter next to him- Sugawara thinks that, by the way that the corners of his eyes crinkle, that Daichi is smiling as he sets it down. “At least he’s in with a good crowd.”

“Oh, god,” Sugawara laughs, rubbing at his temples with a grin, “he’s just like the rest of them- almost like having a second Nishinoya around.”

“Just what we needed, another one.”

Their laughter bubbles gently into the air as they reminisce their thoughts in silence. “Alright, but you love Noya-san,” continues Daichi, “so, what’s up with Hinata…?

Those eyes of Daichi’s finally meet him out of the corners of his eyes and he crumbles beneath that weight, eyes flitting down into his lap as every coherent sentence in his head gets wiped beneath that stare. Though Daichi had never wronged anyone in this bloody apocalypse that they were in, something about him intimidated Sugawara. Daichi felt dangerous in a way that wasn’t straightforward and bold like Kageyama and Hinata, nor did he hold their same you-never-know-what-I’m-thinking secrecy; instead, he released true fury in the same way that Sugawara did- _under a calm, relaxed exterior._ The only difference between the two was how they utilized that anger: Sugawara let his words out like bitter venom, coated with a false honey, lies, while Daichi fed the flame, making his words as harsh and as truthful as possible.

Daichi was a man with such a similar mindset to himself that Sugawara wasn’t sure he’d know how to deal with it if they ever got into a bad argument.

With a slow blink, Sugawara begins. “He’s just… _a lot_ like Kageyama.”

Sugawara hears the guy’s hum of confusion and gets straight to the point; “don’t take it that way, Hinata, he’s- different in every way and yet he’s exactly the same. He gets along with everyone- _hell_ , he gets along with people to likes of which I've never seen before, he’s the opposite of Kageyama until it comes down to priorities. Then, in that case, he copes and copes and does just fine until it’s something that he _doesn't want to do.”_ Sugawara grips at his pants, “and then he’s just- _Kageyama all over again._ There’s no saying no to this kid.”

Daichi’s focus returns to his glass, musing: “are you warming me I have two idiots to straighten out now?”

_“No.”_

Sugawara returns his stare and it’s as hard and as serious as a stare could get. “I’m warning you that Hinata might be even _worse_ than Kageyama.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, as he knows Daichi doesn’t have one. “Just about an hour ago, Hinata leapt the gates and saved Kageyama from a batch of six running lurkers despite all the warnings we’d given him about his wounds and Kageyama beforehand- broken ribs and everything; and it's all because he feels a need to prove his worth. At first, when he’d first woken up all jittery and homesick, I figured- well, _anyone_ would be. But he _still_ acts that way, Daichi-san. He’s going to get back out there, whether we like it or not- hell, he and Kageyama may as well both be back out there by _tonight.”_

Seeing the first day when Hinata has woken up, all tense and emotional and pinned to his seat after news of his best friend, Sugawara still hears the stubborn snap in his response to them asking for his name, his sharp _“you heard me”_ that proved even in his most damaged state, Hinata remained unbroken. Laughing his anxiety away, Suga whispers: “I’m almost just as scared of him as I am Kageyama.”

Sugawara wishes that Daichi would stop staring wordlessly because it always managed a way to make him feel distraught; Sugawara knows that he’s got more on his mind but all his brain can manage is the blood his palms had been covered in as he patched up Kageyama, Kageyama’s blood- the blood Hinata had risked his own to save. _‘Just what would happen if those two really got into one another’s heads…?’_

Maybe he was overreacting, but it scared Sugawara to death.

But then, Daichi speaks. “Suga-san.” Something about the way he speaks calms Sugawara a little, he doesn’t sound so worried. “You’re telling me that Hinata is equally as stubborn, if not moreso than Kageyama-kun...?”

Sugawara nods.

“And he wants more than anything just to get back outside to find his friend and prove his worth...??”

Same response.

“Then, what are your thoughts on him going on runs with Kageyama-kun?”

 _“I’m afraid Kageyama might taint Hinata-san,”_ replies Sugawara, “get him too used to his own antics and… _y’know, just make him his clone._ They yearn for the same things, he’s not going to settle with just the mile trips out, Dai-san. I’m afraid with just that extra push from Kageyama, Hinata will… Hinata will become just like him…”

“Well,” Daichi begins, and Sugawara watches as the brunette man’s giant hands clasp over his own, “have you ever considered _the opposite…?”_

Sugawara watches Daichi flip his hands over, his palms facing downwards- the sides of Sugawara’s hands that had never seen Kageyama’s blood. “You’re so worried about Kageyama _“tainting”_ Hinata when you’re convinced that he’s equally, if not more stubborn than Kageyama-kun; what if _Hinata_ got to _Kageyama?”_

Perspective means a lot to Sugawara, and Daichi’s words begin to dawn on him as he stares at the backs of his hands. “If we can harness Hinata to work him in the opposite direction, then…”

But Sugawara shakes his head. “We can’t _depend on him like that,_ Dai-san.” Placing Hinata and Kageyama into the same scenario was already enough of a wildcard as it was- so many things to go wrong, and so few to go right…

Sugawara sighs. “I just don’t want them together all the time like that. Right now they’re so high strung and full of immaturity and testosterone they fight for who can get out the door first- and if things came down to it, I’m sure Hinata would get his head popped off if Kageyama reacts too harshly-“

“So, what’re you gonna do to stop Hinata, then?”

Sugawara feels like he’s been hit by a truck and looks up to see Daichi looking at him again. “You just said he’s more stubborn than Kageyama, and if you can’t even get _that guy_ to listen, what’re you gonna do to stop the guy who thinks with his instincts and not his head?”

Sugawara stays silent, Daichi continues. _“Let him go, Suga,_ don’t fight him. And, god, this is going to come out cold as hell, but- _what do we have to lose_ , really? We get two runners in the long run- even if they’re not bringing back the right supplies, they’re bringing back twice the load. No matter how bountiful our supplies are, an extra hand goes a long way- especially with three hundred civilians and counting.”

If he’s honest, Sugawara’s never really looked at it like that. He put his personal biases and his fear of dealing with a second Kageyama above the people in this place- something that someone in his high and mighty position shouldn’t have considered. _‘This is why I can’t be a leader ‘_

“I’m just saying, let it happen. Let those two knock eachother out because you’re not going to be able to stop them in the first place. If the two end up hurt in the long run, that’s no one’s fault but their own.” Sugawara sees Daichi’s hand yet again stop to swirl the alcohol in his glass, never once going to drink it...

 _“Hey,”_ interrupts Sugawara, “you can take that bandana off and drink that instead of staring at it, you know- I have to see it all the time, anyways, it’s not anything new to me.”

Daichi gives him a stare that reads he thought his actions had been totally obscure the entire time and Sugawara shoots him a grin. “Ah, right.” Daichi dips his head. “Sorry.”

Sugawara stretches to undo the knot behind his head, struggling with it for a second or two longer than he would’ve liked because, man- this guy was fucking strong and tied things damn tight. After some struggling, the fabric’s tight grip loosens and eventually gives way, falling to reveal that full face of his.

Scruffy jawline, strong chin; _Daichi was handsome_. So so handsome- _even through the wound that he believed tainted it all._ The remnants of a massive gash stretched down from his ear to the corner of his mouth, patchy, discolored skin that left craters where it couldn’t be glued or stitched… no longer was it an open wound, but the scarring was beyond Sugawara’s saving.

Daichi refuses to meet Sugawara’s eyes and he knows why, knows how the sight of his wound triggers deep-rooted insecurity. Sugawara knows that this scar is the reason why he sits in the dark all the time, in his lonesome- he’s scared of his own image, scared of what others might say about it. Sugawara couldn’t imagine it, suddenly having the face he’d grown close to for the entirety of his life be altered in such a grotesque way- his reflection’s own familiarity was ruined.

Sugawara wishes with every bone in his body that he could tell Daichi the opposite, that he could tell him how beautiful he really was; what Sugawara would do just to convince Daichi that there was nothing he should change about himself-

But, Sugawara stays quiet. _“Nothing new,”_ he says warmly, and Daichi replies with the mere dip of the head. His eyebrows were all scrunched up in a way that Sugawara believed was concentration, and it guilts Sugawara all the further. He hopes his words had been coated enough to coax Daichi out of his anxious state, that years of being a doctor in training had paid off in the concealment of emotion: “it still isn’t bothering you is it? Doesn’t hurt to open your mouth??”

“Not at all,” Daichi mumbles unconfidently; Sugawara doesn’t have the heart to pressure him about it further. Besides, if Daichi really hurt, he’d tell him- _right??_

“Hey.” Sugawara echoes his same cheerful tone, dipping his head down next to him in hopes to meet Daichi’s eyes, “you should come down to the lobby more often, you know. Those people down there- they idolize you.”

And Daichi’s lips curl into a smile, but it doesn’t seem genuine. “There’s a reason why I leave everything in the hands of Kageyama-kun and Ennoshita-san, Sugawara. Besides-“ the man’s fingers gently press to the bumps of skin jutting at unnatural angles from his face, _“don’t want to scare the kids, do I …?”_

Sugawara buckles with a roll of the eyes. “It’s not that bad, Daichi, not as bad as you make it out to be- I don’t see you as any different than-“

“Sugawara.”

The silver-haired man stops with his mouth still hanging as Daichi stares down his drink again. _“Thank you,”_ is all that Daichi says, begging for closure and an escape from this conversation. Why was he so damn discomforted with _Sugawara’s_ form of closure??

_‘Fuck.’_

Sugawara hated how much time Daichi spent secluded, no one to talk to but the walls and no one to listen but the alcohol. But if Sugawara really hated it so much, why didn’t he have the balls to _defy_ Daichi? To merely stick around awhile longer and talk things out…??

Dipping his head, Sugawara makes his stand, “thank you for the advice. I’ll be on my way now.” His words echo of curtness. As he marches to the door, he hopes and prays for Daichi to call out to him one last tile- in fact, he expects it, but it never happens. Not even a one-liner of reassurance.

Sugawara got _nothing_ and it irritated him to his very core for reasons he didn’t care to explain, emotions he didn’t care processing because he already knew all he needed to know about himself.

Sugawara fucking cared.

_“Kageyama-kuuun,_ has anyone ever told you smells like a rat’s vagina in here?”

“Quit calling me that, damn it. It’s annoying enough with Sugawara-san calling me it, the last thing I need is for you to do it too.

Hinata’s eyebrows furrow quizzically as his eyes return from Kageyama’s barren walls to his face. “Suga calls you _rat vagina??”_

“No, stop adding _-kun_ to the end of my name. _It’s annoying as hell.”_

 _“Ohhh._ Right.”

 _‘You’ve gotta have something.’_ Hinata’s eyes begin flying around the room like fucking ball in a ping pong machine, looking for anything of interest… and yet, there was _nothing,_ barren walls and a floor of disinterest- nothing set up besides what the hotel already had to offer and like- _four dirty shirts in the corner._ Had this guy had _anything_ on him when the bombs hit??

“The hell are you looking at?”

Hinata stops, _right._ No matter- he was about to have a chat with him anyways. He’d get something out of Kageyama one way or another. “Just… _looking.”_

Kageyama scoffs at him and Hinata lets out a sly, half-hearted chuckle, “you’re always so ready to move forwards, you know that, Kageyama? Why don’t you take a load off for a while-“

However, the raven-haired man seemed nowhere near relaxed as he turns himself back around, making Hinata edge closer back to the door: _“because, Hinata,_ in this world it’s never not a battle against fucking time- I hoped that _you_ of all people would understand that.”

“Then why do you act like you’ve got all the time in the world out on runs?” Hinata shoots back, a lazy stretch presenting his nonhostility and he grins when he sees Kageyama bristle. _‘He’s always so angry, it’s so easy to figure out which buttons to push…’_

“If you came here just to fucking antagonize me, you may as well get the fuck out now.” Hinata makes himself right at home, plopping down on the end of one of Kageyama’s beds, depriving Kageyama of the only thing he knew how to read: reaction. _“I’m not, honest-_ I’m just curious about the method behind your madness, you know…?”

Kageyama remains standing, scowl prominent. _“Then you tell me first._ How the hell did you two manage to clear your way into that infested shithole??” Hinata stares at the guy’s chest as his arms fold, watching the way his muscle wrapped and inflated around his tight posture, “start from the beginning.”

Hinata shrugs, avoiding eye contact. “Alright then, suit yourself.”

Hinata begins without hesitation or argue, seeming as he really didn’t have the right to considering all that he’d put Kageyama through. “It started off… y’know, _before the shit,_ with just me, Kenma and my sister. We were here as a vacation, no particular reason why, just to get out and about- but being a pair of broke twenty year olds and a sixteen year old who didn’t have to pay for shit we couldn’t afford to go somewhere really exotic so we just chose here, Tokyo-“

“You’re not from here?”

Hinata shakes his head. “Miyagi.”

Kageyama’s eyes squint curiously as Hinata continues. “We went somewhere where we could afford nicer things yet not worry about extra money for plane tickets and such. But, when the bombs hit- man, we’d just gotten here, not even here for a couple of hours… Kenma and I were a few blocks away from the hotel, getting something to eat, when all the sudden it exploded outside…” Hinata pauses. _“Kenma-_ he got hurt, real bad.”

“Was he struck by the bombs?” The redhead can tell by the way Kageyama stiffens that he’s skeptical and Hinata waves him off; “no, _flying debris;_ he’d be long gone by now if he’d gotten infected. He was struck in the temple, concussion was evident, I’m not so sure he wasn’t battling amnesia… but I dragged him back to the hotel with Natsu until- until the biters started appearing, too many for us to handle. Since then, we’d migrated into a tiny little house maybe a mile or two north of where that hotel was…”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, how the hell did you get around with so many lurkers??”

And Hinata breaks out into a grin: “and I’ve been meaning to tell you: _rooftops._ Rooftops and scraps of meat and rocks to distract them. I feel like if you utilized it, too, you’d be taking way less time exploring”

Kageyama’s eyes glow with interest, _“no shit?”_

And so Hinata tells him, tells him about the raid into the hotel and their reason for why- only pausing every few sentences to make eye contact with Kageyama and see his reaction. Hinata thinks that he’s at least intrigued, upper lip slightly more prominent than usual, unblinking stare. Hinata goes into the best depth that he can during his description with his lack of vocabulary and memory. “I don’t remember a lot of it because I think half of my brain wants to forget it, but… Natsu and I were trapped in the room we’d checked out in at the hotel, our only ticket out being the window; it wouldn’t open, so I shattered it. Natsu got out fine, but the biters tore the door down and it scared the piss out of me; even though I tore my arm to shreds and nearly plummeted to my death, if I would’ve been any later in falling I would’ve been bitter food for sure…”

Kageyama had stood through what must have been a minute's worth of a summary and yet that focused sheen in his eyes never left- was he looking for a slip up? A flaw?? “Hey, Kageyama-san- _can you blink?_ Seriously, you’re starting to freak me out-“

Snapping out of it, Kageyama blinks once or twice, clearly at a loss for words- it brings confidence to Hinata’s voice. “Good; now that we’re on mutual terms, if I may ask once again: why the hell did you save me?”

The raven-haired man gives him a hard stare, but it doesn’t particularly faze Hinata anymore. He thinks that Kageyama notices as well because a second or two later his head ducks, shielding his eyes from the returned intensity of Hinata’s stare. _“Do you need a reason?_ You should be glad you’re alive in the first place, you and Natsu both.”

Examining his nails, Hinata shrugs. “Well, I don’t need a reason, but I want one; not many people would’ve gone through that much effort for some rando on the streets, just curious as to if it’s some locked-down trauma or something.”

“I was thinking with instinct and not anything else; nothing in my brain considered the potential that you two held for us.”

Yet again, Kageyama’s voice breaks somewhere in the middle. He’s bad at hiding things. _‘That’s not his real reason.’_

Hinata lifts his chin. “You’re sure that’s all?”

“That’s all.”

His tongue flits out to dampen his lips, “you’re _sure-“_

“Why’re you so damn insistent about it?” Kageyama takes a step forward in a clear threatening stance, “I don’t want to talk about it. There are a million other things we could be talking about that’re more relevant, so quit pestering before I get pissed off.”

Smugly, Hinata sinks deeper into the foot of the bed- he can’t even see Kageyama’s eyes, his head is dipped so low, but his voice- his voice gives everything away.

So, one more time, Hinata pushes. _“Why not?”_

He tips Kageyama too far. “Listen to me you little fucking _brat-“_

Hinata’s confident streak is suddenly broken by terror as Kageyama leans down and grabs at the collar of his shirt, yanking him to his feet against his ribs’ weary protest. They’d exerted their limit today, Hinata’s sure that with much more pressure he’d end up bedridden for at least another week.

“I’m already taking time out of my day to listen to what _you_ have to tell _me,_ so don't you dare start asking me about who I am or who I was. I did not agree to have you interrogate my ass.”

_‘Fuuuck, I’m in deep shit. This guy really is impossible.’_

Hinata sheepishly raises his hands into the air as Kageyama looms above him; “that- this wasn’t- _isn’t_ an interrogation, it was just curiosity, I’m sorry if it came off as hostile-“

Kageyama pulls him tighter to his chest; “do you understand how many mixed signals I get from you and your sister, Hinata? How much your lives revolve around your- your precious _Kenma??”_

_‘Kenma.’_

And, in an instant, an on-switch is flipped inside of Hinata- sort of like his _“fuck you”_ switch. It takes his twitching fingers a moment, but not too long before his anger bellows and he returns Kageyama’s intensity with an infuriated curling of the lip. “Yeah, _Kenma-_ can we talk about _Kenma_ for just a little bit, here, Kageyama-kun?? How you refuse to even try and go after him again???”

Kageyama scowls. “I can’t go back there, Hinata. You don’t know how bad it is out there.”

“Bad enough to let an innocent life go to waste??”

 _“Yeah,”_ Kageyama replies coldly. _“That bad.”_

Gnashing his teeth, it takes Hinata everything not to slug him right then and there. “I have more to worry about than just one fucking person, I don’t get why that’s so hard for you and Natsu to understand. I have an entire fucking hotel that depends on me-“

“Maybe if you did things for them,” Hinata interrupts, a dangerous venom on his tongue, “they’d respect you _more!!”_

“They _do_ respect me, asshole!!”

The only thing that grounds Hinata in his place is his promise to Yachi and the faint soreness in his ribs, “they don’t, Kageyama. Everyone here fucking _hates you.”_

Hinata sees Kageyama’s eyes flash in fear as he leans closer, hissing: “they respect you out of fucking fear. You’re like some damn dictator to them.”

_“Shut up!!!”_

Hinata doesn’t even see Kageyama’s hands reach for his throat until they’re squeezing the life out of him; he realizes as his mouth goes to draw in air but he can’t, Kageyama was choking him. The cogs in Hinata’s brain stop moving- it’s all fear, and the rest are those fucking eyes as Kageyama gets closer to pinning him down, _“shut up!!!”_

In a last ditch effort, the redhead’s hands snake between Kageyama’s arms to claw at his face, targeting the eyes. Kageyama yowls; Hinata’s free, and that’s all his brain can comprehend. He gasps for air, twisting and collapsing against the bed- everything cloudy, and his panic hadn’t assisted him by any means in oxygen deprivation. Kageyama screeches furiously and Hinata blindly lashes out with a foot, managing to snag him in the gut but his attacks only fend him off for a split second because a moment later Kageyama has his hands heavy on his back, pinning him face-down- the weight was too much, _‘this weight is too much-‘_

Hinata feels like his ribs are about to explode in any second and Hinata screams in pain, _“get off!! It hurts, get off!!!”_ He can feel the jagged angles of his ribs brushing into his lungs; they’re going to rerupture, they’re going to shatter again-

In that split instant, the weight on Hinata’s back comes flying off and Hinata chokes on air, trying to slow his breathing because it was hurting his ribs all the worse. “Fuck,” Hinata gags, tenderly rubbing strength his side with clenched teeth-

Until another hand places over the top of it, gently feeling up his skin, “Hinata.”

 _‘Woooaaaah-‘_ that voice was right next to his ear, holy shit. Hinata shudders and wilts away from him, head tilting to get a visual understanding of what he’s dealing with. Kageyama’s about five inches away from his face, genuine concern riddled within his furrowed eyebrows and it takes Hinata everything in his power not to pimp smack him out of fear of a growing erection. Yeah, Hinata found that the same guy who just beat his ass to all hell he wanted to pound his ass to all hell; the redhead isn’t sure he’s experienced a more obnoxious case. No matter the intention, though, there wasn’t a doubt in the world that this scene looked as sexual as Hinata wished it both was and wasn’t. “Are you okay?”

 _“Fine!”_ Hinata squeals, “I’m fine- get the _fuck_ off of me-“

Hinata was very sure they were splayed out in a very doggy style-esque position with Kageyama’s fucking meat pressed up into his fucking ass, but clearly Kageyama wasn’t making that out of the situation- why the hell was _he_ making that out of the situation?? Masochism??? _‘That damn voice is the culprit,’_ but not like Kageyama had gone out of his way to make his voice any more seductive than it already was, Hinata was just a horny fool.

“Did I hurt you??” _‘Yeah, now you’re concerned.’_

 _“Kageyama-“_ Hinata swats at the hand that kept attempting to touch at his skin, urgently whispering: “get the fuck off before Yachi-san walks in here or something-“

“What?”

God, he doesn’t want to be blunt about things, but- no way in hell did someone not hear something with all that commotion, someone would be coming to investigate soon. God, why couldn’t Kageyama just take the fucking hint…? Hinata wriggles and vigorously continues slapping at the hand laying next to him, _“off off off off off off-“_

“If this is about your stupid fucking promise you may as well just let me make sure you didn’t break something, dumbass. I feel bad.”

Hinata’s back throws itself into a vicious arch as Kageyama’s fingers intrude the layers of his shirt- he tries slapping at them but he can’t maintain balance while doing so, “Kageyama what the _hell are you-“_

The redhead wheels his head around, finally getting to the point: _“are you trying to make it look like we’re having dry sex right now??!”_

The raven-haired man’s face blanks; “we’re _what-“_

“What the hell is going on in there??”

Screeching, Hinata tries to wriggle away but Kageyama isn’t complying and neither is the short time that it takes for Nishinoya to walk in on them- _‘you’re fucking kidding me.’_

Freezing up immediately, the corners of Nishinoya’s mouth drop as he realizes what he thinks he’s walked in on and Hinata doesn’t blame him. So here Hinata was, back arched and his ass pressed neatly into Kageyama’s fucking _dick_ as he hung over him, one hand placed over the top of the other guy’s while Kageyama’s own hand dipped under his shirt, riding his ribcage-

Hinata points a thumb back, defeated. “He’s not dry humping my ass.”

Nishinoya slams the door shut.

Hinata raises his eyebrows as he turns back to Kageyama. “Well, least he won’t walk back in.” He cups at his mouth before shrieking _“oh god yeah Kageyama right there don’t stop!!!”_

Kageyama scrambles off of him without consideration for his ribs this time and he squawks in pain as if he didn’t have it coming, rolling onto his back, “we have shit luck, you know…?”

The raven-haired man just pants and glares back at him, his hands resting on the opposite side of Hinata, as if he was disgusted by the thought of even touching him. “I think… _I think we’re done here.”_

 _“Yeaaah,_ me too.” He catches Kageyama staring him down- what, was he checking him out now? Hinata dips his head. “Sorry, Kageyama.”

Kageyama’s snarl returns. _“Why??”_

“For... that. I instigated it- and…” Kageyama meets his eyes and Hinata chokes up; _“everything else.”_

A deep glare glances between Hinata’s eyes. “If there’s something on your mind you may as well spit it out.”

“I understand- _everything_ about Kenma, you know, _I do,_ it’s just- frustrating. I can’t do _anything_ here, I feel trapped and I don’t like having to depend on people nor have them depend on me… _I just wanna be able to do my own thing but I can’t,_ and if there were any other way, I wouldn’t be at the base right now…”

Kageyama has seemingly stiffened up and Hinata doesn’t know what it means but he’s lost all focus. “I don’t want your shitty apologies, Hinata, just…” the sharpness to his words ebb away and Hinata doesn’t get it. “Just get the hell out of here.”

Hinata doesn’t know whether to be pissed or sorry; he’d just opened his heart up to have Kageyama slam it back shut again…

But Kageyama didn’t seem so genuine about it.

Eyebrows drawn together, the redhead stiffly rises to his feet, walking stiffly towards the door. He can’t bring himself to look back, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that this talk… _hadn’t been a complete waste of his time._ And no, we’re not just talking about the fact that Hinata got to have his ass back against Kageyama-

In fact, he’s pretty sure he’d gotten more out of Kageyama than he ever intended to reveal in those short few minutes before the fight. Hinata takes a glance down at the bandages around his arm, thinks about how quickly he was able to move and recover today- time was running out for mister independent back there, and fuck, was Hinata ready for it. _‘A couple more days,’_ thinks Hinata, _‘just a couple more and I’ll be strength training again. I’ll be ready to be by his side.’_

Hinata yearned to feel alive again.

Stopping at the door, Hinata waits with a final question burning on his tongue, one that he didn’t know how to phrase without triggering Kageyama-

“What?” The voice behind him snarls, “you waiting for something...??”

Hinata turns slightly. “Do you trust me?”

What a vague execution, good going Hinata. He expects Kageyama to chew his ass for this, but… _“as in?”_

“Like- you believe me now, right? Because I have- _more-_ more to share with you, Kageyama, we-“

“Fucks sake, _get the hell out before I deck you for a second time.”_

Hinata pauses as Kageyama sighs.

 _“Sure._ I trust you.”

And that was all it took for Hinata’s spirit to catch fire. All his other questions could be saved for later, all he needed was just a little bit of reassurance. _‘You can hate me to my very guts, but as long as you trust me…’_

Gently, Hinata smiles.

“So… I heard that you and Kageyama-kun-“

Hinata chokes on his water so viciously he feels the sting of it reaching his nostrils. _“Shut it, Natsu.”_

Next to him, Yachi swats him on the back a couple of times, trying to aid this coughing- perhaps the most violence he’d ever get to see out of the girl. Natsu just grins from where she stands. “I mean that’s… _something??”_

The redhead wipes at the corners of his mouth, body still hunched between his legs as he relieves his lungs of intruding water; “we didn’t- that’s not-“

_‘Aaaand I can't tell Yachi that we fought.’_

“Haven’t you learned not to trust a single damn thing that comes from Nishinoya’s mouth??” Hinata asks the two of them, and Natsu replies, off in the corner organizing their belongings. “It’s been like a half an hour and the entire base is convinced you two had some sort of fling.”

“Oh perfect, _magical._ Next thing you know they’re gonna be saying that Kageyama piped me raw and I sexually transmitted the lurker disease and now he’s got four days to live.”

Natsu just laughs at his vulgarity while Yachi gives him a condescending swat to the shoulder, “can we talk about something actually _important, please??”_

“You two can,” replies Natsu, carrying a bundle of dirty laundry towards the door, “I don’t want to hear you rant about your boy-crush for the eight millionth time, I’m gonna go throw our clothes in the laundry.”

 _“Real supportive,”_ Hinata comments, staring at her out of the corner of lidded eyes, _“thanks.”_

 _“Love you.”_ The door kicks shut. Yachi just smiles at his side as she fiddles with his hair, tongue peeking out from one corner of her mouth.

“I feel like she’s been trying to get away from me, recently,” Hinata says in reference to his sister, and Yachi’s eyebrows drop in concern; “she’s going through a lot, too, you know. She’s suffering from losing Kenma, too- and her mom, her previous life… hormonal stuff- give her a break, Hinata-kun.”

 _“Yeah, but…_ Natsu is just so _different_ than I am, even though we’re blood; I feel like I’ll go nuts if I don’t see her every ten minutes. My brain’s paranoid that I’m going to lose her too, and she just… I don’t know, brushes it off. Deals with things her own way. It just worries me.”

“Just give her time, Hinata.”

Though no less unconcerned, Hinata dismisses the topic. “Alright, so- here’s my theory,” Hinata begins, pinching his lips together, “I think that Kageyama… I think he may have lost someone.”

“Like- _during the apocalypse?_ What did you two talk about in the first place?”

“I was mostly just trying to prove to him that even when we’re alone, I’m not a threat both physically and emotionally. I explained to him how I managed before tearing my arm open and everything was going alright until he brought up Kenma with negative connotation; _that_ pissed me off. But, as for him losing someone during the apocalypse, it's just a guess. I couldn’t pry much out of him, and maybe he’s just a dick but I’m _so sure_ just by the way he responds to things that he’s dealing with some kind of loss. I don’t think I’d be able to explain how, he just- he feels like a man going through at least one of the stages of grief… any time I mentioned the fact that people seem to respect him out of fear, he _denied it._ Like he _knows_ that he’s doing a bad thing and he really does want to help people but…” Hinata sighs, recalling Sugawara’s words,

 _“If it’s not something Kageyama wants to do, he’s not going to do it_. I think he’s got like- some superiority complex or something-“

“So, what you’re picking up is Kageyama actually wants to be a good guy, but he’s too selfish to admit to it?”

Hinata winces at her explanation. “Sheesh, _so harsh-_ I feel like he’s... more dense than anything. He doesn’t go out of his way to make other people suffer, he just ignores it. I know because he- er, he kind of- _hurt my ribs_ and apologized for it, implying that his aggression is on impulse and not genuine intent.”

Yachi pauses and Hinata knows what’s coming next. “Is… this when you two were-“

_“For the last time, we didn’t have sex.”_

Her laughter fills the room. “I don’t know who to believe at this point.”

“I mean, if he weren’t such a prick, I just might’ve let it happen.”

“Aww, Hinata-kun, are you _crushing?”_

 _“A crush?_ On Kageyama???” Hinata scoffs and rolls his eyes, wondering just how much Natsu has fed her; Hinata still hasn’t come clean about his sexuality but imagines she’s pieced something or another together by now. _“Hell no._ It irritates me that he’s got the personality of wet dog shit because I _would’ve_ wanted to stick my dick in him, but…”

The look of mortification on Yachi’s face makes Hinata laugh. “I’m sorry, was the dick-sticking too much...?”

_“You wouldn’t top Kageyama-kun.”_

Choking, Hinata doesn’t know what emotion processes, but hell- “ouch,” he coughs, amusement wrapped in his voice, “you’re right.”

A wide smirk falls across her face. “Did he top when y-“

 _“Anyways!”_ Hinata interrupts loudly, clapping his hands together, “Kageyama also, when I asked him why he rescued me, he gave me a bunch of vague and bullshit answers and I pried at him until he said he _“didn’t want to talk about it””._

“Oooh,” mouths Yachi , “so we’ve got a backstory boy on our hands. What’s your plan form here? Are you trying to be Kageyama’s therapist??”

“Kind of hard when he kicks my ass whenever I try to open him up,” admits Hinata, “I guess I’m just holding onto the hopes that we get closer when we go on runs together, have him crack open then. If I can just get to see me as someone who understands him, as his _friend…”_

Frowning, Yachi asks: “you still want to run with him? You don’t hate the guy??”

And Hinata almost begins pitying Kageyama, “when have I ever implied I _hated Kageyama?_ Of course I don’t. I think he’s just... _lost and misunderstood-_ and don’t get me wrong, I really hate the things that he does and the way that he walks around with a big stick and an even bigger co- _attitude,_ but I don’t have it in me to hate the guy when no one even knows him. I think I’m just about the only person in this entire hotel who’s willing and confident enough to believe they can change Kageyama-kun and I know I can change him, Yachi-san. I did it with Kenma and I’ll do it all over again with a man twice as difficult if it means that he and the base both stop suffering.”

The blonde’s bottom lip juts out, “well, you sure can be persuasive. You’re a really good person, Hinata.”

“Yeah, well- _it’s not entirely my preferred situation,”_ confesses Hinata, “at least with you guys, you and Natsu and Sugawara and stuff, you’re all pent up in this hotel- not a whole lot hits here, and I can trust that I could be gone for a week and you guys and this place would remain in tact. But out there in the shit, it’s _worse_ than hell. I didn’t really want to get attached to someone who I might eventually watch die, you know?”

“Well, same goes for you, Hinata-kun.” Yachi’s words start out matter of factly but slowly decline in confidence, “you could… _you…”_

Hinata’s head leans with her hands in his hair and he sees her staring at nothing in particular, eyes gleaming of something distant. “I know, Yacchan. I know.” His head falls a little, trying not to think too deeply about the consequences of his own death and who it would affect, “but I’ll tell you what, _I made a promise…_ I made a promise to Kenma once even _before_ the apocalypse that I wouldn’t die. So, I really _can’t_ die, Yachi, I won’t. I _won’t_ let myself die until I’m sure that Kenma and you and my sister and everyone else will live. Thrive.”

Hinata smiles. _“I’ll be alright out there, Yacchan._ I’ll take care of myself.”

And in return, one of the corners of Yachi’s lips curl. She looks hesitant, but it doesn’t take long for her to add a final loop around one of the braids and embrace him tightly with a somewhat content sigh. “That’s good to know…”

The way she pauses knows that there’s more to come, and he’s scared by the deep atmosphere of the room around them that they weren’t about to be pleasant words.

“You know, Hinata-kun… you always seemed kind of- _sad._ Like, even when you were smiling, it wasn’t always like… a _happy smile…”_

Hinata knows where this is going and he’s horrified that it’s been that obvious.

“And you wouldn’t really talk about how you felt once you got like that, and… you know, maybe it was just… you not feeling good because you’re healing and stuff, or me misinterpreting, but… sometimes- _um,_ I- _I’d just- I’d get scared that… you…_ you might…” she looks at him pleasingly. “You know…”

Hinata isn’t phased in this slightest; he’s been through conversations like these countless times before. “You were worried I might _k-”_

 _“No!_ God no, just- that you’d do something _really really irrational,”_ Yachi finishes, and suddenly Hinata realizes that she’s on the verge of tears, “Hinata, it’s…”

_“... it’s nice to know you wouldn’t do something like that.”_

The way she talks makes Hinata stiffen, it’s so damn disturbing to hear people read the room and reflect on the thoughts Hinata found intruding every so often. “No, _no-“_ Hinata squeezes her tightly, “Jesus Christ, no, I- I couldn’t do something like that, Yacchan, I’m so sorry if I ever worried you like that...”

As disturbing as Hinata finds it, there’s not a lot of shock value in Yachi’s words. It was only natural for Yachi to jump to conclusions, after all these were dark times, and Hinata wasn’t exactly the nightlight he used to be.

_‘“Hinata, I have more to worry about than one fucking person. Unlike you, an entire fucking hotel depends on me.”’_

“People are counting on me now. More people than just Kenma, Yachi-san-” Hinata stares out the window, stares at the broken buildings and the thin smoke that still rose even months later from a few, whatever had they put in those damn bombs… somehow, it made determination filter through him. “Right now, I’m the only one who can change the pecking order around here.”

Yachi sniffles. “I’m glad. You’re… _very strong,_ Hinata…”

Hinata inhales, fuck. He’s sick of this civil shit again, he wants the faint scent of blood and gore mixed in with the wind, _he needed outside._

And that’s when the door creaks back open, Natsu reappearing with bags of clothes in her hands, _“Niichan?”_

The two scramble off one another, already knowing the romantic interpretation Natsu would have on the scene. Hinata straightens up. “Yeah?”

“Ennoshita-san wants you outside,” she replies, Yachi viciously wiping at her face next to him. Hinata’s eyebrows crease, _“what for?_ Do they need help??”

“Dunno. Just does.” She makes a beeline for the drawers, unperturbed.

Hinata shoots Yachi one last troubled look, asking gesticulatively for her assent and Yachi just nods, wiping away the last of her tears until she suddenly grabs at his braids; she looks embarrassed. “Let these be a reminder to you, okay?” She whispers just beneath Natsu’s earshot, “let them remind you that there are people back here who... care about you and stuff, Hinata. Don’t die out there.”

Her words come out in a blur but holy hell does their impact last, so much so that Yachi’s able to wiggle her way off the bed before Hinata’s even on his feet. _‘Let this be your reminder…’_

Hinata’s eyes meet his wounded arm and he stares long and hard, recollection in his eyes.

Your reminder.

The ginger’s fingers trace behind his ear to where the tiny braids started; there were just two of them, only long enough for three or four tiny loops to be made out of them, but… they had symbolism. A meaning to them. Her voice rises to a higher level to avoid suspicion, “stay safe out there, Hinata-kun. Don’t die over something really stupid.”

Eyebrows loosening, Hinata lets his playful gleam return. “Are you underestimating me?” He challenges.

“No; that’s why I’m letting you do all this in the first place. I just know how dumb you are and you constantly rely on dumb luck so don’t do anything _dumb_ out there.”

“Alright, I’ll use my head just a little.”

The two part ways upon stepping out into the hallway, Hinata’s bounds fueled by an anxious curiosity as he makes his way to the front of the base. Typically, departure rituals were performed between Hinata and Yachi- though typically in his room to further snuff the rumors that they were dating. It wasn’t like Hinata didn’t like Yachi, nor that she wasn’t pretty or dating-worthy- but there was just something about her that made Hinata almost feel guilty about having feelings towards her. Something about her ambiverted innocence that Hinata didn’t want to taint, it drove Hinata away from her romantically, knowing the two’s personalities just wouldn’t mesh as well as someone better for her would.

Hell, maybe he was scared of the promises he’d break with that kind of commitment.

With a quick greet to Asahi as he passed, Hinata notices that the light filtering through the glass doors was getting fainter by the hour, the sky tinting orange instead of a rich blue. It was nearly sunset already, huh?

Trudging through the doors, Hinata finds the sundown wind sending chills up his spine as he calls to them. “Hey, guys!”

He finds Ennoshita not around, must be managing the guns. Nishinoya is the first to perk up at his voice. “Hinata-san??”

“Well, hey man!! How’s the hand doing?”

Hinata flashes Tanaka a palm, bandage still wearing a few faintly drops of blood and the guys circle him in awe- all except Nishinoya, of course, who blushes furiously and refuses to make eye contact _. ‘Wonder what that’s about,’_ he thinks, sarcasm etched into his thoughts.

“Dude, we watched the whole thing out there; you are so badass.”

And that’s when a call from behind him grabs his attention; the boys around him suddenly pipe down, and that’s how Hinata knows it’s serious. “Hinata…!”

Ennoshita has appeared from out of nowhere, and the moment the redhead turns to meet his eyes he gets his serious tone very quickly; “if you hadn’t been injured, I’d slap the hell out of you right now, Hinata-san,” he says upon approach, “don’t _ever_ think about pulling the same bullshit again, you hear me?”

Frowning, Hinata turns to him fully, “what…” and suddenly he’s pissed, _“-the hell???_ I saved his life-“

“Yeah, and in “saving his life” you nearly cost us double the losses; you’re lucky as hell you even survived.”

No way. _No fucking way._ The ginger wheels around, expecting the guys to back him up, but instead all he gets is a quiet nod from Tanaka while the rest of them avoid eye contact for the ground. It fuels him even more, “it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t handle, I- Kageyama would’ve _died_ out there if I wouldn’t have done anything-“

“And that’s only one death, _what part of this aren’t you understanding??”_

Fucking dick.

Ennoshita receives a shove to the chest that he should be grateful wasn’t a punch as Hinata fumes at him, screaming before Ennoshita could even respond, “don’t any of you guys realize what would happen to this base if Kageyama died?? _The only guy that makes a genuine effort to get your fucking supplies, another human being???”_ Hinata’s teeth bare at him, “you don’t understand what it’s like to live with guilt like that, watching someone die!!”

These people, they just couldn’t understand- and with their collective agreements on mindsets, Hinata doubted that their ways would change until they experienced it.

In return, Ennoshita’a voice dips into a low growl, “Hinata-“

But Hinata isn’t head over heels about listening to authority today, “you didn’t see what happened!! You know what, just- _fuck you,_ Ennoshita.”

Immediately, Tanaka’s on his feet snarling: “don’t talk to him like that!!” His face reads that he’s more nervous than offended, though.

But, thankfully, Hinata isn’t looking for another fight- he just wants to make a statement. He jostles Ennoshita to the side, storming towards the doors with his fists balled crossly at his sides. He watches cracked dirt and cement pass over his vision, refusing to look at anything but the ground; he was so fucking angry right now.

_“Hinata, come back!”_

Hinata just turns his body and flips them off as he continues to walk forward; Nishinoya looked like he had begun chasing after him but had stopped halfway through. A bit of rationality pokes through Hinata’s anger at that moment; _’Nishinoya wouldn’t be the type to give up so fast-’_

The ginger feels warmth hit his shoulder as he plows directly into something, arm pinning against his side in the process, and-

“Oh.”

Hinata feels his heart plummet, face tightening in shock as his brown eyes met blue. _“Kageyama!!_ I-“

But Kageyama is eerily calm, staring at him with lidded eyelids and a neutral expression. What, so no punches today? No grabs to the hair, no _“watch where you’re going, dumbass!”?_ “Sorry.”

Hinata’s eyebrows cock upon seeing the bags looped around the raven-haired man’s back, sporting a heavy jacket… “where the hell do you think _you’re_ going?” He asks quietly, as not to rouse opinions from the others.

“Where do you think?” Responds Kageyama, and Hinata blinks, still half expecting a swat to the head as he latches onto the strap of Kageyama’s bags. “But- _Sugawara-“_

“I know what Sugawara told me,” interrupts Kageyama, brushing his hand off in a manner that was rather gentle for the brute- _someone was in a good mood today._ Was it the dry humping? Hinata could arrange for other times-

 _“Make sure the others don’t tell him I’m gone, either._ There’s just- something I want… _have_ to do, I’ll be back before dark.”

“It... can’t wait? Not until it's light outside again, at least??”

“Nope.”

Hinata squints with one eye as he backs down, lips parting as he searches for the questions he doesn’t know how to conjure; Kageyama’s eyes lacked so much expression that it made Hinata anxious. The hell could be so important to Kageyama that he felt the need to sneak out an hour before nightfall…?

Hinata doesn’t know, but by god does he let it slide. “Okay...”

Arms flopping to his side, Hinata takes a step back, not bothering to tilt his head up to look at him and instead looking from the top of his eyes. _“Okay.”_

The raven-haired man eyes him the entire time he slinks around him, like he’s waiting for Hinata to throw a punch or call him a dick or something- but Hinata stays quiet, his back turned to Kageyama. He’s thinking...

Hinata’s got another one of those crazy bad ideas that looked crazy good in his head.

The other men just look between the two like they’d just witnessed Jesus himself rise from the grave. _‘They’re probably thinking about how nice he was to me,’_ thinks Hinata, _‘but, if I’m being honest, that was a really weird occurrence in itself…’_

It was almost like Kageyama was trying _not_ to get on his bad side.

Hinata frowns, turning to the gates, watching him go. _‘Why, though…?’_

The guys at the gate just back out of the way, no one even bothering to open it for him, they’re all shocked silent- Kageyama ends up doing it himself. Hinata looks up at the sun, fuck, it’s already closing beneath the buildings. “Be back before nightfall my ass,” he mutters to himself, there was no way in hell-

As soon as that gate shuts behind him, the guys all whip around and meet Hinata’s gaze, every last one of them dumbfounded and awaiting an answer- Hinata snaps in this moment beneath their candid stares: “uhh- I’m gonna head to bed!” He calls out completely and totally inconspicuously, cupping his hands around his mouth to ensure everyone heard him, _“g-goodnight!!”_

Unsurprisingly, no one responds- in fact, no one even moves a muscle as Hinata begins bounding off in a jog no less than a run…

_‘Now, where did Nishinoya say those back doors were again…?’_

Natsu was gonna be so pissed.

  
  


Hinata had been defending him.

Kageyama had heard Hinata’s defiance the moment he’d stepped out the door, in complaint to Ennoshita’s demand.

_‘Why?’_

What reason did Hinata have to be defending him like that? God, what reason did _anyone_ have to be defending him like that??

The sky is a rich, dark blue above Kageyama’s head, still light enough to see but not to be comfortable in as the night wind cut through his jacket. _‘Fucking hell,’_ is what he thinks. He was so used to holding his own against everyone; no one had a real reason to be defending him or liking him- admittedly, Kageyama was aware of that. Kageyama knew his defiance was wrong, that he was putting all the lives in that base at risk because of his own attitude, they didn’t deserve that, but…

Kageyama had issues and even more of them got brought up while he was there. He wished every god forsaken day that the world didn’t move so fast, that he’d have more hours in the day- nothing he ever did in a day felt satisfactory to him.

This life fucking sucked. But life was shit and life moved on.

Kageyama has his knives out and ready on his belt as he shimmies his way through a tight squeeze between a pair of cars. It wasn’t like the movies where the cars were all filled with blankets and belongings, trying to escape the apocalypse- no one knew it would hit them in the first place. Some of the tallest buildings still ran off back up generators, lighting up the sky even during the day, but for the most part it’s quiet, empty. It gave a sense of ethereal uneasiness; Tokyo had been completely destroyed before anyone knew what hit them.

It was sad.

Kageyama’s arm brushes against metal through its bandage and flares up again, reminding him of his wound and a certain orange-haired face that Kageyama found a lingering force, lately. Ever since that asshole Hinata showed up, he’s been clinging to Kageyama’s side like his little bitch and the raven-haired man just couldn’t comprehend it.

Kageyama knew that, if there was any person he was rude to, it was the elder Hinata- and yet still, the guy persisted, all to get back to that _Kenma_ character of his. He couldn’t understand Hinata’s thought process, and it made the dude unpredictable- besides, Hinata didn’t even know what it was like up North anymore. All those lurkers, traveling in a circle…

Which was why he was checking the place out _now_. The lurkers travelled in a circle by day, at least- Kageyama’s never seen them at _night,_ and if they did come out, he’d sure know. Maybe lurkers were cathemeral...?

Kageyama wasn’t entirely sure how far north he was from base, a good three-fourths of a mile, he guessed- it’d been a while. He’d spotted a few lurkers here and there, but for the most part, they remained out of sight… it was weirdly quiet- hell, too quiet. Maybe lurkers hid away during the night time or something. Whatever made him feel better, anyways.

Caution still riddles through Kageyama’s bones and even still he jumps about three feet into the air when an undetected lurker slams its face into a window from inside the car next to him. Her face is bloated and molding from decay, glazed, off-white eyes sending shivers through Kageyama- he didn’t even want to know how it smelled in there. With a look of disgust and the tense hunching of shoulders, Kageyama picks up his pace...

_‘Something’s off here.’_

The raven-haired man can’t place a finger on exactly what’s offsetting him here, but an instinct rooted deep inside of him tells him that drowning that anxiety would leave him regretting it, so he keeps it held tight to his chest with a knife already in his hands.

This place, it reeks- like, reeks worse than usual, and not just like decay- it smelled like piss and shit, like something _lived here_. It feels almost like a trap, like he’s walking out into his own death. He stops and takes a listen only to hear the wind that blew his bangs out of his eyes.

 _‘I should go back,’_ he thinks. _‘This can wait another day…’_

And so he does, his pace quickening even more- but it doesn’t take him long to sit and realize: _‘do I... know my way back..?’_

The _one time_ he hadn’t brought his map with him; anxiety bubbles in his gut, still feeling eyes prying into his back. He’s not exactly lost, no, he recognizes these streets- but which way will lead him back, he doesn’t remember much of… he feels scared, so he runs.

His head would turn to scan the roads that intersected in fear, but nothing ever came. It’s not much long after this that a single lurker appears into view, staring right at him and the man slows it down, deciding avoiding it would be a much easier process than mowing it down, so that’s what he does, ducking behind cars and being way too damn cautious.

_‘I’m so on edge right now that I’m like- hyper aware of my surroundings…’_

And that’s when suddenly, from the open car window next to him, a hand lurches out to grab at him. Screaming, Kageyama whips the lurker in the face with his knife, having it fall back and hit, of course of all places, the car horn.

“Damn it!” The sound blares out for a good few seconds before Kageyama manages to shove the lurker off the horn, anger fueling his fear, _‘what’s it with me and shitty car situations??!’_

In response, Kageyama hears more than one lurker yowl, more than he can see and at this point Kageyama doesn’t care, he’s bolting it. He makes it about halfway down the street with the lurker before a handful more jump into his line of sight from various different entry points, making Kageyama skid to a halt. It’s at this point Kageyama realizes he’s surrounded, and that that even if he wanted to scream, he couldn’t because fear was locking his throat up- _damn Tokyo, having so many people and damn lurkers for being so sensitive to noise-_

Heaving, his eyes look up to the sun- he can already hear those damn cicadas chirping and even if he made it out of this situation alive, he wasn’t so sure he’d be able to see much of anything afterwards. _‘Damn it.’_

This had been a horrible idea. Not so sure if it was ever good, at that.

A shriek from nearby makes Kageyama lose it. He wheels to the side, met by the sight of lurker teeth in his face and, in a blind panic, whips it with the side of his knife. It doesn’t do much more than get the thing to stumble back, a blade stuck deep into its neck and Kageyama gags while finishing it off with a fresh knife- where were they all coming from?? _Was there a source???_ Because every time he turned a new one seemed to pop into view, there was no way lurkers were smart enough to have been waiting to ambush him-

Fuck it. He’s gotta pick an escape route or he’s dead meat.

_‘But where...?’_

There had to be a place where Kageyama could sling a knife and get through- he didn’t even care about losing one or two at this point. His head swivels as he desperately looks for a way out- for the first time in this apocalyptic life, Kageyama isn’t entirely sure he has a way out. His mind repeats, _‘fuck, where did they all come from-’_

One of the lurkers closest to him makes a rather bold gesture, hands flaring out as it lets out a vicious scream and Kageyama hisses in return, ready to strike at it when necessary-

The creature then proceeds to get its scream cut short with a violent squawk as the back of its head divets from the impact of a fucking _rock._

 _‘What the_ fuck?’

Kageyama watches it fall to the floor, body still trying to perceive death to reveal another body on top of the car behind it, snickering and very obviously holding a handful more stones in his pockets. _“Heeeeeyyyy,”_ an orange-haired man greets, “you seem like you’re in trouble.”

Kageyama can’t process what emotion he’s feeling as Hinata bounces from car to floor, being loud and erratic and drawing all attention away from Kageyama as he pelts the lurkers with rocks, fucking _rocks. Rocks._ It doesn’t even really register to Kageyama that Hinata’s actually out here in front of him- in fact, somehow, he’s really not all that surprised. It’s happened before and if he’s honest it’s probably bound to happen again. “Why don’t you try using your surroundings next time, Kageyama-kun…!”

For once, that voice that pissed him off so much… boy, was he glad to hear it. Kageyama chokes up a grin, _“bastard…”_

“I got your back, buddy, don’t worry!” The lurkers all seem to scream in delight at the idea of such fresh, lively meat and more than enough of them turn their attention towards the boisterous redhead.

Hinata circles around out past him and Kageyama rushes to his aid, hurling a knife into one’s head before piling into another, letting it hit the ground before finishing it off with a kick beneath the jaw that tears its head clean off its neck and showers Kageyama’s foot with congested blood. Motherfucker, did that feel good.

Another approaches with a weak attempt at a lunge and Kageyama dodges it with a sidestep, watching Hinata fly past him at damn near the same time with a string of about eight of them on his tail, _“here, catch!!!”_

Kageyama snags a car piece from Hinata on the fly- _a muffler??_ He doesn’t know what it’s called, he’s not a car guy, just a kill guy. Hands twisted behind his back, Kageyama cracks the lurker’s head from off its shoulders, hearing Hinata’s own struggle behind him as blood sprayed from the open wound- there was something about fighting alongside a guy who held the same sense in fighting style as him that made Kageyama’s teeth bare into a smile as he watched that lurker die.

“Oh, _fuck!!!”_

To the sound of Hinata’s dangerously strained voice, Kageyama’s head raises- and it doesn’t take Kageyama long to figure it out. One of those lurkers was running, chasing, giving Hinata’s weakened body hell. At this moment, it comes to Kageyama’s realization that _‘he can’t slow down without getting killed,’_ and the raven-haired man buckles. _“Hinata!!!”_

The redhead vaults himself over car hoods in a vain attempt to escape but it's hardly any use, that thing was fact and at least twice Hinata’s size. Kageyama lands a quick hit-and-run on another lurker in his way, a vicious grunt coming from the back of his throat as he chased after the two- fuck, if he could just hit the thing with a knife, distract it or slow it down..

Kageyama’s face tightens mid-sprint. _‘What the hell is he_ doing???’

Hinata hits a clearing and makes a direct beeline for the brick building in front of him, Kageyama makes quick notice of the lurker gaining on him fast out in the open. _“Hinata…”_

No way Kageyama was going to make it in time to save him. Kageyama’s lungs swell, _“Hinata!!!!”_

And suddenly, with the throwing back of the arms and the dipping of the knees, Hinata is airborne. One fluid motion has his body twisting and his leading foot colliding against the brick- against that wall, his leg hunches yet again, quicker this time, because he has to to deal with gravity now…

But it’s all just as fluid. Like a spring, Hinata bounces right off and in maybe a three good seconds that lurker eating shit on the sole of Hinata’s shoe, taking it all the way to the ground where the base of Hinata’s foot crushes its blackish, gaping mouth inward.

Kageyama damn near trips. _‘Holy shit.’_

Blood painted Hinata’s dirty white shoes a brownish red.

“Awwww, I got a tooth stuck in my shoeee,” Hinata whines as the raven-haired man appears next to him, eyes bugging out of his head as he stares at the lurker who had its top jaw practically flattened. Hinata, hardly breaking a sweat, asks Kageyama as if he really hadn’t just fucking parkour drop-kicked a zombie in the teeth: _“do you think if I keep it I’ll get a present from the tooth fairy...?”_

He seems to recognize Kageyama’s tone and asks ingenuously: “what…???”

“N-nothing,” Kageyama sputters, panting, “you okay?”

 _“Fine-_ I can handle myself, unlike you.”

_“Hey-“_

Lurkers begin snarling behind them and quite rudely interrupt their reunion. Didn’t look like heading back to base was such a good idea, anyways- especially when Kageyama didn’t know what direction to head in the first place and night time was making this place look all fuzzy. Kageyama shoves his pipe into Hinata’s chest and he stumbles a little, “we need to find somewhere to hide, _fast-“_

Hinata takes it with a nod and before he can say anything more takes off in a dead sprint, getting a lead on Kageyama already- which, he wasn’t all that pissed about in consideration. And holy shit, is this kid _fast,_ Kageyama’s blown away by the fact that Hinata has been keeping pace with him even despite being injured and three weeks or so out of shape. “Houses probably have a less chance of being infested than office buildings do,” Hinata pants next to him. Kageyama doesn’t take time to look at him but replies: “that one, then; _sharp left, looks intact.”_

_“Got it.”_

Stirring up clouds of dust from the long-unused roads, Hinata bails to his left and Kageyama follows in his lead. Every muscle and every damn thought was on fire, he was so damn scared.

He felt _alive_ , to be exact.

The raven-haired man notices the redhead go out of his way to kill a stray lurker, and seconds later Kageyama realizes it’s so that he can take the lead in case the entry to the house is difficult- silently, Kageyama praises him. _‘So he’s not a complete fuckhead, after all-’_

Then again, this wasn’t Hinata’s first rodeo, either.

Kageyama flings himself to a stop by the time he lands onto the porch, nearly crashing into the door with all his momentum. Hinata darts back up behind him, back pinned to Kageyama’s side with the pipe in tense hands, ready to take off after anything that got too close. _“Hurry, Kageyama!!!”_

Kageyama grabs at it- of course, it’s stiff as hell, but he’s pretty sure that if he rams into it hard enough...

It doesn’t budge. Uh oh.

Kageyama slams his whole weight into it along the side that didn’t hurt, “come on-“

“Kageyama, if this doesn’t work we gotta go, I’m counting _eleven_ right now-“

_‘Eleven?’_

Kageyama batters it again and again, he knows it’s loosening…

Hinata stiffens into him, “Kageyama, we gotta _go!!”_

_“Fuck!!!”_

With a final scream of effort, Kageyama manages to tear the door open, planting him on his bad arm on the ground. Hinata’s in after him as soon as the opportunity is presented to him, mangled arms appearing on the porch moments before Hinata slams it shut, a hot second of terror igniting his words: “Kageyama fucking _lock it!!! Lock it, lock it, lock it…!!”_

Grimacing over the pain in his arm, Kageyama scrambles to his feet, the aggressive pounding against the door signifying that yeah, there were _definitely_ more than one or two out there. Hinata has his back pinned to the door and his arms flared out wide, every ounce of his weight being used and a wild flash of desperation in his eyes before Kageyama stumbles into him and flips both locks as quickly as he can.

_“... fuck.”_

He hears the muffler slip from Hinata’s shaking hands and clatter to the floor as they finally find their muscles loosening, catching their breaths under the sound of banging and muffled, wet growling. Fucking gross. _‘So we’re safe…’_

_‘... probably.’_

Kageyama leans his head against the door, panting with his eyes closed and his forearms trapping Hinata’s body beneath him. He could feel Hinata’s breath fanning off his chest and it gave Kageyama comfort, they were miraculously alive, the two of them… but it doesn’t take long for the ginger hair pressed beneath his face to piss him off and with a weak effort, he swats at Hinata. His energy is sapped so his blow isn’t much more than to get his attention, but Hinata flinches anyways, reeling back and causing himself more pain by his scalp hitting the door. “Ow- what the hell??”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing out here???”

Beneath him, Hinata just shrugs, looking like he was about to faint. “I was stalking you. _Duh.”_

Unable to find the strength to be angry, Kageyama’s voice hardly even raises. “Damn it, dumbass, _why???”_

Hinata grunts and shifts himself further along the doorframe; he’s so… short. Annoyingly short- _must suck._ Kageyama pulls his forehead from off the door and Hinata’s eyes meet his own, “because... I wanted to know what you were doing.”

Kageyama knew he was being suspicious, but he never expected the idiot to _trail him out here._ The vibrations from the lurkers’ pounding on the door don’t faze him so much now that he knew that they were safe, “so you figured it would be a good idea to just- _chase after me with no weapons or supplies whatsoever?”_ He gestures to the lack of Hinata’s, well, _everything_ needed in order to survive out here. “Just how one-track is your brain, Hinata???”

“I needed to catch up with you before I lost sight of you,” Hinata pants, wiping at his mouth, “I didn’t know you’d just be headed in one direction first. Also, you owe me now, we’re even. _Two saves to two saves.”_

“I didn’t need saving,” Kageyama lies, “certainly not from _you.”_

“Why, you’re very welcome Mr. Kageyama-kun.” Hinata takes a bow. “Also also your face is covered in blood and it fucking _reeks_. Looks badass, though.”

Kageyama sighs and pulls off of him, wiping his face clean of blood before tossing his bag off his back to his feet, beginning to dig through it. “Here, dipshit.”

The raven-haired man throws a canteen of water and it hits Hinata in the tits, “drink that sparingly because I didn’t exactly plan on more than one person needing that. Or… potentially having to spend the night out here- _fuck_ , everyone at home probably thinks we’re dead… just know that I’m sparing you from an earfull because I already know you’re going to get more than enough from everyone else.”

“Uh-huh.” Hinata flings his head back as he downs water beyond his share and Kageyama picks up the muffler from off the floor. “I’m gonna make sure this place is safe.”

“Wait, can I help?”

 _“Absolutely fucking not,”_ spits Kageyama, and Hinata mocks him with a rude, mimicking movement of the lips, “I want you staying right fucking here and giving your sore, sorry ass a break, _okay?_ If those lurker’s get through that door, yell at me, I’ll leave my bag here. There are extra knives and other little things you can use in the front pocket- and help yourself to the cereal bars but don’t eat fucking _all of them.”_

Per usual, Hinata seems to be taking none of this seriously. “I mean, I’m kind of a whore for cereal bars, so don’t cross your fingers,” he replies, slinking down onto the floor just to rummage through his bag, _“‘specially if they’re maple flavored.”_

Kageyama scoffs, taking his bag back to retrieve a flashlight before he goes. How did this situation not faze Hinata in the slightest??

 _‘Ugh,’_ thinks Kageyama, _‘I’m stuck with him.’_ How the hell had he managed to get outside in the first place…? It’s not like Hinata would’ve had much of an opportunity to squeeze out with all the guys constantly monitoring the place… _whatever_.

Flipping his flashlight switch on, Kageyama assesses what he already knows; it’s a smaller type of house, wedged between two buildings of its relative size. He’s guessing that it has one floor minus the basement and maybe an attic, so that doesn’t leave all that much for him to check out. Good. That’s good.

The house in general is relatively clean, too; the only hazards being vases and pictures and other ornaments which had probably toppled off due to the bombs. They were covered in dust, indicating that they hadn’t been touched since the panic, and it didn’t look or sound like anything was in here. But better safe than sorry; Kageyama wouldn’t stop until every last square inch of this fucking place was checked out. The kitchen’s connected to the living room without walls, so he checks that second; all the cabinet doors were shut. He’d look for food once he was done checking the place out.

 _“Oh fuck; maple!”_ He hears Hinata’s voice echo from the other room, a rather sudden reminder that he wasn’t alone in this place, and Kageyama laughs through his nose as it scares him. He’s not used to someone else being with him- he isn’t sure how he feels about it. It just feels... odd. _“Don’t eat all of them, dumbass!”_ The man travels down the hall, checking the doors along them, muffler first. The first is a closet, with still quite a few clothes left in it- they looked masculine, too. If the blood on his shirt got too uncomfortable, he was sure he could find something in there.

The second was a small bedroom, equipped with a small bed that wasn’t really meant for two and wearing a reddish aesthetic. There were a lot of accessories and things, but not a lot of pictures- made Kageyama wonder if the former owner of this house lived alone. One picture on a dresser, however, particularly managed to stand out to Kageyama. The man picks it up, staring at the shattered glass as he wipes it with a thumb; _‘in the military, huh? Maybe he left some weapon or something here...’_ The man wondered which one of the men in uniform is the owner of this place. Well, _was once_ the owner of this place. People didn’t really own things in the same sense as they once did, ownership was given to those who proved they could take it.

Rummaging through drawers, Kageyama suddenly finds one of those small, electric lanterns- probably perfect for when it got dark. He takes it with him, _‘Good.’_

And so, he exits the room and again, the bathroom, no lurkers- a second room which looked kind of like a lounge room, no lurkers. No more beds though, shit. Looks like Kageyama’s sleeping on the floor tonight or- _something._

The man mopes around until he finds the basement and fuck; no way in _hell_ is he going down there. So, he just shines his light down the stairs and just whistles, knowing how lurkers responded to sound. The whistle echoes faintly, kind of sounded wet down there. Sewer pipe bust? Gross. But, no screams followed in his wake; Kageyama sighs. _‘We’re safe.’_

The raven haired man proceeds to check all of the windows; again, the house doesn’t have a second door, so that’s not a problem. They all look relatively sturdy, this house hadn’t been directly by the bombs. Kageyama pulls out from inspecting the bathroom, _“hey, Hinata;_ house is clear.”

“I know.”

Blinking, Kageyama appears around the corner to see Hinata working on opening a can of something in the kitchen; some type of soup. Kageyama exhales sharply. “Didn’t you already have a cereal bar...?”

Hinata puts up fingers. “I had _three.”_

“Good god.”

Hinata giggles but stops after a short second, his tongue flicking out in concentration as he finally cracks it open, careful not to spill it. “You want some?? It’s gonna be lukewarm and gross as fuck, but...”

Kageyama shrugs. “Sure.”

There’s a quiet humming sound coming from Hinata’s lips. It’s silent otherwise, in a serene way. “You know, Kageyama,” the guy begins as he reaches for a bowl in one of the cabinets, Kageyama smirking when he had to stretch on his toes, “I wasn’t entirely sure you could be civil before today.”

_“Shut up, asshole.”_

_“That’s_ more like it.”

Hinata returns with a couple of bowls and pours the soup into them; filling a lot more of it in Kageyama’s bowl than his own. _‘I hope there’s a decent loot in this house, too, and this wasn’t completely fruitless...’_

Finally taking in his surroundings, Kageyama notices it’s finally dark outside, Hinata’s face only being illuminated by a very faint glow coming from the window above the sink; it would be pitch black in here soon. Hell, the hallway already looked like a nightmare.

“There.”

The bowl slides it’s way across the counter after a shove, a spoon flying in after it seconds later with a loud clink that splashes Kageyama in the face; “dinners served, your majesty.”

Kageyama wipes his face clear for the second time tonight, this time of soup. “Gee, _thanks,”_ he grumbles, and Hinata covers his mouth as a chuckle slips through. It reminded Kageyama a little of how much he hated this guy, but-

Of all the people he wanted to be stranded with out here, Kageyama supposed he’d rather have _him_ than someone who was about to bring judgement for his every last move. Still the same annoying Hinata that pissed him off, but maybe just a little less repulsive out here in the shit.

Kageyama picks up his spoon and begins eating, his hunger catching up to him after his first few bites, stomach growling in approval. Food was food, nowadays. “You think we’re going to have to stay here tonight...?” He asks Hinata.

Hinata just looks up at him with lidded eyes; _‘that’s a yes.’_ Kageyama huffs in exasperation, shoving another spoonful into his mouth, “damn it.”

“So then,” continues Hinata, “wha’d you find in here, Kageyama?”

The man just sighs, “I didn’t really check. It’s getting dark, too- and since we don’t have the luxury of electricity in here we’ll just have to search it in the morning when there’s daylight and it’s not a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah…”

The way Hinata squeezes out that word makes Kageyama look up. The redhead’s face is twisted a little, his hand pressed into his waist and Kageyama quickly understands what’s going on. _“Sorry._ Ribs are hurting like a _biiiiitch-”_

 _“Dumbass.”_ Remarks Kageyama. “I don’t know why you do the things that you do, knowing that you’re going to be fucking hurt in the end.”

Hinata doesn’t respond; in fact, he acts like he didn’t even hear Kageyama and Kageyama sighs, slamming his bowl back onto the counter. He throws his lantern from earlier onto there, too, nudging it towards Hinata; “There’s a bedroom on the hall to your left, go lay down. What did you do with my water canteen?”

“Left it at the door with your bag…”

Kageyama sighs, long and hard over Hinata’s expression; _“you said you were fine.”_ What more did he really expect from Hinata, though?

 _“I was fine!”_ Hinata waits a second before repeating with gritted teeth, _“was.”_

The man growls and wipes dust out of his eyes. “I’m going to get my stuff then check for ibuprofen in the bathroom. Take your shit and go lay down, I don’t want to hear you whining about it anymore.”

“I’m sorry that I’m in _pain,”_ Hinata snaps back, sulking around the kitchen counter, putting tender pressure on his side; at least he was doing what he was told.

That stupid fucking kid.

Kageyama heads for the front door, where he’s immediately greeted by his bag and three cereal bar wrappers on the floor. The raven-haired man clicks his tongue and picks up his stuff, thinking, swinging his bag over his back, the plastic wrappers fluttering with the wind it created. What an _idiot._ God damn, what a _fucking..._

Kageyama chews on his lip. _‘What’s with this guy and going out of his way to save me all the damn time...?’_ Following him, chasing him…. couldn’t he leave it alone for three seconds?

Fists clenching, the man stares up at the window, trying to give himself something to do. He can't see much out there with the absence of sunlight, but he can tell that there are lurkers absolutely _swarming_ the place. They were all in one collective horde, too- like beyond this, there weren’t much more in any direction. Why _was_ that?

Kageyama exhales deeply. Lurker machinations.

_’Nishinoya and Tanaka are probably casting lots on if I’m dead or not by now.’_

He hadn’t ever just pulled out here at nighttime. It had always been run to all hell during the day, sleep at base during the night.

Turning back, Kageyama proceeds to investigate that hallway. It’s pitch black, so Kageyama whips his flashlight back out... one thing he wasn’t used to experiencing was the apocalypse at night.

At once, he heads for the bathroom cabinets, rummaging through them, pulling bottles out one by one and putting back the ones he didn’t need. After a while, he finally found some ibuprofen, which would at least _help_ Hinata. After all, it’s not like his broken ribs are fresh; he didn’t need quite as strong medication to begin with. Or, so he thinks- he doesn’t know Hinata’s damn body. Kageyama keeps quite a few other bottles, though; ones that could be handy to Sugawara. Some amoxicillin bottles, allergy pills. He stuffs them all into his bag; anything was helpful.

_“Hinata.”_

Kageyama cracks open the door to see him already set up, finishing off his soup with the lantern resting on the dresser a few feet away. It’s not strong enough to meet all four corners of the room, but it works; casting hard shadows onto the ginger’s face. Kageyama gets a weird feeling of serenity in this moment; a feel of _“we’re okay”_ , and he quickly shuts the door behind him. “I found some stuff for your ribs.”

Hinata exhales loudly as Kageyama throws his bag down, carrying nothing but his canteen and his pills. “Are you not going to eat, Kageyama-kun...? That’s kind of a waste...”

His nose twitches. _“Guess not._ I’m more exhausted than I am anything else right now...”

Handing the meds to Hinata, Kageyama plops down on the edge of the bed next to him; god, did he need that sit. He was so fucking tired. “You can have the rest of mine,” Hinata offers, stretching the bowl he’d put off to the side to Kageyama’s face and the raven-haired man shakes his head. “I’m okay, Hinata, just- _tired.”_

“Speaking of tired, this bed is kind of small…”

“It’s okay; I’ll just sleep on the floor.”

Kageyama sees Hinata’s eyebrows furrow in concern and he’s not entirely sure why; _he_ was the one with the benefit here. “Yama- that’s not _fair-“_

“You need a good place to lay with those ribs of yours, Hinata,” Kageyama argues. “And this is the damn apocalypse- I’ve been through worse injuries than having my back wake up stiff, now quit complaining. Besides, with the two of our bloody asses rolling around in that thing, it’ll reek so badly you won’t get a wink.”

“Then go sleep on a couch in the living room or something,” replies Hinata, “not the fucking _floor-”_

“I said I’m _fine, dumbass_. I don’t want us seperated, something could go wrong out here.”

 _“So many vulgar nicknames for me,”_ teases Hinata, “asshole, dipshit, dumbass- can you not settle on _one?”_

 _“Dumbass,”_ Kageyama says in solidarity, “it suits you best.”

“Yeah,” agrees Hinata, “I think you’re the asshole, anyways.”

 _‘Haha,’_ Kageyama thinks dryly. _‘Funny.’_ It was strange being called such a belittling term in an endearing mannerism.

“You know, Kageyama-kun…”

The redhead looks back up at him, eyes glowing gently. “... We make a pretty good team.”

Kageyama stays silent, staring down at his legs. He was so dirty and gross and he felt like everything was being weighed down by rocks…

_“Sure.”_

“Why were you out here, Kageyama...?

Kageyama’s lips part to bullshit him but he gets interrupted, Hinata reading his mind: “and you’d best not give me the same crap you gave me when I asked about you saving me, or else I’ll make sure you don’t sleep tonight.”

Lips pursing, Kageyama’s head falls beneath his shoulders. “You wanna know why?”

_“Duh.”_

This worries him, makes him worry he’d say too little and make it blunt or too much and make it emotional. “I don’t know what it was, but… for some reason, with our conversation today… _I don’t know,_ with all the talk of Kenma, I got the bright idea to check out the North at night time…”

“Well _that’s_ pretty fuckin’ stupid of you.” Kageyama agrees.

“I don’t know what part of me thought it was a good idea, I just… wanted to see if lurkers constantly kept going or if they stopped every once and awhile.” He takes a forlorn glance at the window protected well by curtains, _“I think I may have gotten my answer._ Just glad I didn’t go out too much further.”

And what Kageyama expects, he doesn’t get- he imagines Hinata getting all defensive and rubbing it in his face that he finally buckled down and went after his friend again; he practically hears Hinata say _“aww, look at you, being all eloquent!”_ but Hinata… he’s _quiet._ His gaze redirects onto his lap, “... Ennoshita was real mad at me for saving you today...”

Kageyama’s heavy eyelids become a little bit lighter at this moment.

“And honestly, I really do understand why, but… it made me so _mad.”_

_“Why though??”_

Hinata looks taken aback by this, and Kageyama’s brows furrow in earnesty as his head slowly turns back to him. “For what reason would you even _think_ about defending me? I’m just- _just a prick who doesn’t listen to anybody.”_

“You’re _aware of that...??”_

Sheesh, could you be any more blunt? The redhead eyeballs him even still and it makes Kageyama feel even more guilty; “yeah.”

_“Then why don’t you change it?”_

Kageyama turns away and stays quiet. He won’t answer this. Nothing that makes him uncomfortable will he answer. Hinata presses on.

“I defended you because I’m the only person who _understands,_ Kageyama. I know what you’re going through and I know it’s more stressful than hell and I just- I _hate_ the way you’re treated, even if you’re a big dumb asshole, I _hate_ it.”

Kageyama’s breathing hitches, and for a split second, all feeling of exhaustion melts away.

“I know that you need to change, but… that- that doesn’t define you as a _bad person,_ Kageyama…”

Kageyama bites his lip. _“Stop talking.”_

 _But Hinata doesn’t stop talking._ “Kageyama, I know what you’re like. You’re bad at socializing, you’re insecure, and so you’re not used to anything but short conversation...”

That was the complete opposite of what Kageyama wanted to hear. Shit; he was so braindead trying to come up with responses.

“So may I ask… _why??”_

“Hinata, _please_ shut up.”

“Kageya-”

“Hinata, we’ll fight again. I’m scared I’ll hurt you again.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” replies Hinata, “not any longer than thirteen seconds, anyway. If you’re that concerned about it, it doesn’t offend me, Kageyama, honest...”

Kageyama turns over to him, his eyebrows falling just a little. The last thing Kageyama needs is to wound this wounded kid further. The man snatches a pillow from out beneath Hinata, also taking back his water canteen and placing it on the nightstand next to what remained of Hinata’s soup. “I’m going to sleep before I get too riled up.”

 _“I-”_ Hinata freezes up and Kageyama can practically smell the guilt waving off of him. “O-okay. I’m sorry if I offended-”

 _“Stop apologizing._ Just- stop fucking talking. Please.”

Hinata’s head dips, and he makes a face like he’s about to apologize again, but he doesn’t say anything. Kageyama throws the pillow onto the ground. “You want the light off?”

“Yeah.”

Kageyama grabs his flashlight and heads over to the lamp so that Hinata wasn’t the one who had to stand. The redhead hadn’t even laid down yet; he was still sitting upright with his back against the wall; Kageyama hoped that it was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the floor. “Kageyama- don't you need like; a blanket or something?? It’s... _cold.”_

“I’m not taking yours, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I’ll just- take a coat out of the closet or something.”

Kageyama turns off the lantern and it immediately gets eight times darker, only illuminated in tiny spots where his flashlight shone. He could just barely sill the silhouettes of Hinata and the bed against the pale moonlight, though he dare not shine the flashlight at him and blind the poor guy.

Making sure to lock the door just in case of lurkers or some random, midnight break-in, the raven-haired man then heads over to the closet in the corner. “Kageyama, that’s... _really pitiful,_ you know.”

“Shut up, idiot.”

 _“Dumbass,”_ Hinata corrects, which Kageyama echoes. “Dumbass.”

Pulling a coat out and then closing up the doors, already thinking of tomorrow morning. “We’ll leave whenever you’re feeling up to it, Hinata. I don’t want to push those ribs into doing anything they’re not ready to do.”

“You make it sound like I can’t handle myself, Kageyama-kun.”

The raven-haired man laughs in mockery as he sets himself up, plopping down onto the ground. It’s exactly what he expected it to be; cold and uncomfortable and hard- but, he didn’t mind it; it wasn’t the end of the world. Well, _it kind of was,_ but that’s not what Kageyama was talking about- situational, not the setting. Kageyama flicks the flashlight off and immediately everything goes pitch black, leaving the raven-haired man’s tired eyes to adjust. Bit by bit, carpet hairs materialize underneath the moon, and Kageyama shifts beneath his coat of a blanket, trying to figure out what the best position for sleeping on the floor was. Answer was: there was none. His legs were cold. He hears Hinata shift a little bit, putting him at slight ease, knowing that he was actually going to try and sleep-

_“Goodnight, Kageyama-kun.”_

Kageyama’s eyelids close point over his eyes, warm and heavy as he picks at a piece of carpet. He doesn’t say it back.


	4. we’re not so different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New faces appear while Hinata decides that one all too familiar isn’t so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[edit on 5/27/20: the html is no longer fucked, you can now see hinata talking about penis in full italicization]]
> 
> finally. a liminal chapter that isn’t 838393483k. <3 only 14.2k. <33 so short. <333
> 
> im glad i went ahead and decided to halve the chapters because could you imagine this fat mfer being like 28k jesus christ KDNXNF

Hinata awakens to patches of sunlight seeking to burn his eyes out from their very sockets with his head from toe, limb to limb sorer than a motherfucker.

_‘Why.’_

What a lovely first-morning thought.

A faint reminder of his trauma from yesterday is present in his bones, muscles he didn’t even know he _had_ aching from overexertion. Hinata rubs at his eyes, rolling onto his side and away from the sun, a spec of drool present on the pillowcase. His bandages were all dirty; Hinata hoped that Kageyama had some extra wrap or something to keep it from getting infected…

He recalls where he is, what all had happened and it floods in with little emotional response- hell, this was the apocalypse, nothing shocked him anymore. The redhead’s eyes flutter open a little while he breaks into a vigorous yawn, “Kageyamaaaa…”

_“... Kageyama?”_

When he doesn’t get a response, it prompts Hinata to sit up a little bit further. He’s greeted by the sight of an abandoned coat on the floor; shit- _Kageyama’s already up, evidently._ Bastard, waking up without waking him, letting him sleep in… at first, Hinata’s surprised- he’s not typically that heavy of a sleeper, but the sheer amount of dizziness and stiffness he feels in his body tells Hinata that last night was one hell of an exception. He knows for a fact that the bombs could’ve started dropping again and he still would’ve slept like a rock through all that shit. “Fuuuuuuuck me-“

Hinata sits up, squinting, his face scrunching against the brightness of the room surrounding him. _“Owwww…”_

“Well, look who finally decided to join the party.”

As the redhead blinks one eye at a time, he comes to notice a figure in the doorway, blurred by tears and sand and they encourage him to rub at his eyes, feeling unclean from wallowing in his own filth all night. “Good morning, there, dumbass.”

 _“Dude_.” Hinata proceeds to inhale sharply so that he can squeeze the rest of his words out, even if it’s through another yawn, “my body feels like it’s experiencing a fucking hangover...” He stretches and rubs at tender shoulders, “good morning to _you_ , maybe.”

Yet another civil conversation. Hinata’s heart begins to speed up. _‘Don’t fuck things up this early in the morning, damn it.’_

“How’re your ribs doing?”

“How’s your arm doing??”

“It’s... _fine-_ don’t worry about me.”

“Then I’ll ask the same of you,” Hinata shoots back, pressing at them tenderly. They seemed alright. An unimpressed snort comes from Kageyama.

“You know, can I ask you something?”

One last wipe away at his eyes and Kageyama appears in his full, stupidly attractive glory. _“Knock yourself out,”_ Hinata mutters.

“How the hell does your hair manage to get even worse overnight?? You look like a bush that got half its branches mushed in.”

Hinata frowns at this, only to prove Kageyama’s point as his bangs tickle the bridge of his nose- must’ve been a night last night. The redhead goes crosseyed as he blows them out of the way, having his hair slump off to the left like a fringe, _“fuck you.”_

Kageyama gives him a haughty smirk but oh my _god_ is it soft around those jagged edges of his- Hinata feels the steady growth in his chest cut short before exploding into the widening of eyes and the reddening of his face. His only thoughts afterwards run along the lines of repeating _‘fuck you’_ over and over again as he proceeds to wipe at his cheeks again just to give himself something to do.

Kageyama seems not to notice, though- does he ever catch on to _anything?_ “How long have you been up??” Asks Hinata.

“A while now, not too long, but…” his gaze seems to filter back to the curtains. “Not long enough to figure out how the hell to get out of here.”

Eyebrows lifting, Hinata understands: _“they’re still out there??”_

Kageyama nods. “We’re surrounded.”

Just their luck. _“The hell?_ Lurkers don’t usually stick to one spot-“

“I know that, dumbass. You wanna stick your head out there and ring the dinnerbell for yourself, go ahead.”

 _“I believe you, sheesh._ Let me look.”

Still delirious with sleep, Hinata throws the covers off his body and waddles after Kageyama as he walks away. Coming to his senses, it’s strange seeing this hallway all lit up now- never would’ve noticed the cobwebs in the corner, or how the doorframe was infinitely darker than the walls… why was he noting this again? Word count?? Right, right. As Hinata struts into the living room, he’s greeted by Kageyama standing near the window, looking out. All it takes is one look for Hinata to agree that: yeah, those biters _definitely_ hadn’t cleared. Didn’t look like many more had rolled in since last night, but there weren’t any less, that was for sure.

“Yeaaah,” Hinata shrugs, popping his neck, “that’s a fair biter count to give us an ass-whooping.” He gives up on tallying after he loses track the very first time and reaches out for Kageyama’s bag, pulling it to his legs as he plops down onto the couch, “do you have anything I can rewrap this hand with?”

“I should. I changed the bandage on my arm this morning and there’s not much left but there should be enough to protect that hand of yours.”

“Alright.” Hinata makes sure to wrap it diligently, his lip curling as he pulls the old gauze off. His wound, though nothing that needed stitching, wasn’t the most pleasant to look at- couldn’t have even imagined how Sugawara stitched that arm of his up, Hinata’s sure he would’ve thrown up.

“Nothing got in while we were out last night...?”

“Nothing that I could see,” Kageyama remarks, folding his arms and again Hinata watches the way his muscle expands wrapping around his chest, not taking an eye off them the entire time he cleanses his wound then downed water trying to combat morning breath. The raven-haired man looks awfully discontented looking out there and it makes Hinata frown, asking: “have… you _eaten yet?”_

Kageyama just showcases his trademark stinkeye. “What, are you my keeper or something...?”

Rolling his eyes in response as he digs into a cereal bar with the side of his mouth, he mutters _“seriously?”_ with crumbs taking flight from his lips; “you hardly even ate last night, just- _sit down, Kageyama._ You can’t run off the fumes of your ass, _trust me-“_ he points to one side, _“I’ve tried.”_

This seems to stir something in Kageyama, pacing back and forth in unsteady intervals, _“piss off._ The longer we wait, the more people are going to be mad at me.”

“The base isn’t going to starve in the fifteen minutes it takes us to eat and develop a plan, stupid,” retorts Hinata, “clear your head.”

Kageyama stops, looking extremely unenthusiastic while Hinata slowly dragged his ass further along the couch, patting at the open seat next to him. “You know you wanna.”

There’s a moment's hesitation before Kageyama replies, defeated, _“you’re the devil.”_

“I know,” smirks Hinata, watching Kageyama reluctantly plop his ass down next to him, pouting. ‘He’s so close,’ the redhead thinks, writing with both distaste and sexual tension at the same time. He tries focusing on finishing the wrap he’d placed over his hand, “so, what’s the plan thus far...?”

“Get the hell out before sundown,” answers Kageyama, disdainfully robbing Hinata of the cereal bar the moment his hands presented one to him. “What’s so bad about just… _making a break for it?”_ Hinata asks with a lingering stare at the guy’s hands.

“I kind of… we’re…”

Kageyama seems to sigh at this. “We’re sort of _lost.”_

 _“Lost?”_ Echoes Hinata. He pops a couple of ibuprofen into his mouth while they still had water.

“I don’t know if I’d say lost- we’re not that far from base and I’m sure I’ve been here before, just don’t know my way back,” responds Kageyama, “god- they’re gonna be so fucking _mad_ at home, Hinata.”

The genuine stress in Kageyama’s tone makes Hinata’s eyebrows sink. “Well, _fuck them,”_ he responds, “if they feel the need to get pissy over things you can’t control, that’s on them, y’know. Plus, I’ve got people who are gonna be mad at me, too- _Natsu, Yacchan-_ and I’m _stuck_ with Sugawara and his lectures. You won’t be the only one for once.”

Kageyama’s so distressed and Hinata knows it’s the weights of anxiety, not stemming from himself, but the consequences of being out for so long. He watches the guy take another bite out of his food, “yeah, _sure-_ now not only do we need to figure out a way out of here, but figure out our way back without a damn _map...”_

“Well, I’ve got a solution, but I don’t know how well you’re gonna take it.”

Piquing Kageyama’s interest, he glances over. The redhead’s pointer goes up, “we cooould… _use rooftops?”_

The guy stiffens immediately. “Oh, no.” Kageyama begins shaking his head vigorously. _“Hell no.”_

“Oh, come on, you pussy- it’s not so bad,” coaxes Hinata, kicking back on the couch, “I mean- unless you wanna be stuck in here with _me_ for another week. I already ate all the maple bars, Kageyama-kun- I don’t know how long I can handle being off those bad boys before I go insane. Peanut flavored only gets you so far…”

Kageyama rubs a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots, “Hinata, I’m not some- fucking _parkour freak_ like you are. Christ, what did you even do before the apocalypse?”

“Got paid to get laid.”

“You _what?”_

Hinata barks out a dumb fit of laughter, “I’m kidding, _sheesh;_ I was a loser that didn’t ever go to college, lived a low-budget life helping support my mama and Natsu. Nothing special, really, other than the fact that for a majority of my life, I didn’t have the same kind of devices you city boys had, so I had to entertain myself with my own tricks.”

_“So you taught yourself how to jump off walls and kick people in the teeth?”_

Hinata laughs again, recalling his fight last night, “that was pure dumb luck, if I’m honest; but there’s always a first time for everything and especially when it’s kicking people in the teeth. But, no, I was more like- one of those weird guys who would do backflips off walls in high schools trying to pick up chicks. I thought I was the shit, so I got good at it, I guess.” He takes a prod at Kageyama’s triceps, realizing he had an open opportunity, “what did _you_ do before the apocalypse, muscleman?”

“I was a personal fitness trainer.”

Hinata blinks. “Wait, seriously?”

_‘That’s so hot.’_

“That’s so _cool,”_ Hinata moons, “oh man, I’d fucking hate being one of your students, though- did you hit them and call them dumbass when they didn’t finish time trials properly??”

“Shut it, d- _asshole._ Most of my students didn’t make me want to scalp myself like you do.”

“Well, what kind of badass, dare I say ripped to shreds fitness trainer is scared of a little rooftop running, anyway? You afraid of heights, yama-kun??”

“No, I’m afraid of plummeting to my death.”

“Trust me, Kageyama; if my out-of-shape ass could do it in the very first week of the apocalypse, your buff ass can. It’s not even all that hard, like- it’s more like running and jumping and praying you don’t die, _so_ much safer than the ground! I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think it were possible between the two of us.”

Looking away from him, Kageyama lets the last of his wrapper flutter to the ground; it’s a habit, Hinata’s noticed, the guy can’t handle eye contact for more than ten seconds before he looks away. “Now, Kageyama, it’s your choice- be stuck in here for god knows how long, or go home and feast on maple cereal bars. And- and there’s only one right answer. _And it’s the second one-“_

 _“Alright-_ shut up already.” Kageyama lets out a deep sigh that managed to tickle the front of his fringe, “I’ll do it. Only because I don’t wanna be holed up in here for another fucking week.”

Hinata flashes a bright grin at Kageyama, kind of like his way of saying _“that’s the spirit,”_ and the raven-haired man’s frown gets just a little bit more mellow as he untucks his upper lip. “Just how the hell do you expect us to get up there, though?”

Shrugging, Hinata pushes himself to his feet. “Find whichever building has a roof exit is probably the first priority.”

“Wait- you’re talking about the _skyscrapers???”_

“What other roofs would I be talking about?” Hinata trudges to the window to look out of it- problem was, there weren’t too many skyscrapers range; this street was littered far more with houses. But one, where the taller buildings began to condense just a street or so away, clearly had an exit atop its flat- or, at least Hinata sure hoped it did. It gets the guy to sigh heavily as he informs Kageyama: “it doesn’t look too promising until a couple of blocks off-“

“That’ll just get us _more_ lost.” Kageyama shakes his head, “let’s just- make a break for it, back the way I came-“

“I mean, we’re lost either way,” grumbles Hinata, “may as well get to a vantage point where we can see the base.”

Kageyama glares at him, rising to his feet, “two blocks is a lot when you don’t know how many lurkers are out there. We’re not using your stupid rooftops, too damn risky.”

“Fine,” snaps Hinata, “you go run off all aimlessly and get yourself lost- _I’ll_ use the rooftops.”

“We’re _not_ splitting up-“

“Well, _I’m not having it any other way,”_ retorts Hinata, “we do things my way or _not at all.”_

“You little-“ it seems Kageyama has to physically restrain himself, _“fine, damn it._ But I hope you know you’re the one taking point so you can be the one to get mauled to shreds, see if I care.”

Taken aback by Kageyama’s reluctance, it only fuels the redhead’s anger further. “Fucking _watch me.”_

Hinata immediately begins throwing himself into stretches, not a care or thought in the world about how dangerous this feat just might be alone until Kageyama steps up to his feet. “Do you know how to use throwing knives?”

Hinata just blinks. “Do I look like- _hell no._ Are you sure you weren’t an assassin before the apocalypse? What kind of city boy knows how throwing knives work??”

“Okay, fine, whatever-“ hisses Kageyama, “just use the muffler from last night- I’ll give you fucking one but don’t you dare lose it.”

“I thought you said you didn’t care?”

Kageyama glowers at him. “I don’t.”

 _‘Which is why you’re giving me one of your token weapons.’_ “Uh-huh.”

Kageyama opens up the little patches along his belt, smoothly pulling out a knife that looked as if it belonged in there. Even though they were blood-stained as hell, not one of them looked dull or old, not a single scratch present on its blade. Sturdy, but lacking teeth on its edges, it looked slim enough to slide between someone’s ribs with little resistance. Kageyama really took care of them, Hinata notes, especially for using them about a hundred times a day. _‘Where the hell did he even find those?’_

It gets tossed to his feet. Hinata really has no idea where to put it besides his pocket, but to be fair, he feels a little bit safer with a genuine weapon in his inventory. His arms loop around his head as he watches Kageyama string his bag over his back, shooing him away, “now go on. _Show me what you’ve got.”_

Hinata sighs, his frustration smothering his anxiety, “you better cover my ass, then.”

Kageyama rubs at the straps of his bag, greasy black bangs falling out in front of his face as his head tilted downwards, eyes sealed shut; he looked agitated. “Don’t fucking die.”

Though he’s still pissed, Hinata tries to stomach it knowing this very well could be his last moments alive. He exhales loudly and gives Kageyama a two-fingered salute, his lips curling to the point where it wasn't even an opened-mouth smile- hell, maybe not even a smile at all, but still there. Just noticeable enough to give Kageyama an incentive, letting him know he wasn’t afraid at all. “Same goes to you, man.”

And with that, muffler in hand, Hinata’s flying out the door with a body still numb from sleep but his head feeling the same kind of fucking rush as the wind flowing through his hair.

Good god, how he missed this.

Hinata darts into the front yard, his natural speed making it take only a mere few bounds forward before he’s knocking a roaming biter’s shit in. It’s distressfully hard, the man finds, to keep quiet under these exciting circumstances- but even with his kills being executed as quietly as possible, the commotion gets the biters all around him to stir. More than enough pairs of dull, milky eyes turn to focus on him and it gives Hinata a headrush as he banks away from them, knowing they still had their sights locked on.

Hinata is their _prey._ To every single one of these undead demons, he’s food and nothing more- hard to imagine that those beings had actual lives, once. A couple of months ago or even less, those biters had been normal, functional members of human society- and now look at them. _Rotting from the inside out._

Those things weren’t fucking human anymore no matter how hard you tried to make them be, and Hinata hoped he never got that twisted.

_‘Fresh meat, motherfuckers.’_

Dipping down to snag a rock, Hinata hurls it at one of the cars at the other end, trying to keep them distracted under his attempt to make a break for it- the loud thunk of metal it produces manages to catch more of the biters’ eyes, making them groan in excitement and veer away from Hinata. Funny, Hinata thinks, how their way of expressing excitement was a mere gurgle or scream...

 _‘Ah shit.’_ The redhead’s not so sure where to go with the lot of them; it didn’t look like he had much of anywhere to go, they were so condensed. He guessed he’d just have to risk it and mow the sons of bitches down that got in his way, all while hoping that Kageyama really was on his ass and not some two hundred feet behind.

One of the biters limps towards him just a little faster than the others and Hinata, by logic, locks down on his target, claiming his first hit and run victim. His arms swing back, ribs tightening in objection as his body twists but he couldn’t find the motivation to care. The ginger rakes the car piece across the biters temple, feeling moderately satisfied at his quick and easy kill- but he knows that this part isn’t the hard part, no- not the hard part at all.

The hard part was going to be trying to get through all these biters once they were all in a collective spot. 

Fuck, this was a mess. He’s been out here for at least twenty seconds and he’s still barely halfway down their first street- he can’t catch a break. A snarl from close behind makes the guy wheel back around, smacking the muffled into a biter’s collarbone without time to pull it out. The redhead proceeds to whip out the knife shoved in his pocket and jab it in its forehead.

“Hurry, dumbass!”

Even though the ginger was _not_ ready for this execution, as Hinata pulls his weapons from the biter’s body he catches Kageyama making an audacious break for it- god, was he fast. Guess that showed for a six foot height and being a beef cake as a profession.

Hinata dodges out of a biter’s reach with a single clean jump to the side before taking off after the other man, seeing the biters cloud in front of them like some great wall. Hinata didn’t fear them out-maneuvering him, no- that was the one thing the guy knew they _couldn’t_ do; Hinata was mostly afraid of getting ganged up on. Perhaps worse than most people, the redhead found himself panicking under pressure, and, knowing his functioning, he’d probably end up doing something stupid if he got swarmed by a crowd of them. God, he wished he knew how those throwing knives worked.

Kageyama sinks into one of them, Hinata regains his lead. They’re not so far now, working with one another, switching back and forth between leads- but god damn were his muscles about to be sore afterwards, he was too out of shape for this. Hinata swerves around a car, hoping for a better approach but in the end it’s not any better than what he already had going for him, damn it. Taking careful note of where the biters were in the few split seconds before the wind up, Hinata darts towards a pair of them, slamming the first one into the door of a car, nearly decapitating the first with a heavy strike beneath the jaw. But, it’s head doesn’t come clean off, _“damn it!!”_

What he wasn’t planning on was for his _bludgeon_ of all things to get fucking _stuck._ The biter in his clutches still squirms weakly, clinging to threads of its life while the one next to it stretches its arms out towards Hinata, ready to bite him; the redhead _knew_ what would happen if he let that thing’s mouth near him. Hinata screams furiously and lashes out a leg, knocking the biter in the chest and sending it stumbling back where it fell to the ground. In this moment, Hinata manages to tear his muffler free, backhanding the biter’s face with it and popping its head clean off like a baseball, showering the ginger’s face with the blood gushing from its throat.

“Hinata!!!”

 _‘Yeah, yeah I know-‘_ Hinata turns, his legs straining, preparing to take off again but holy fuck, _holy fuck there were so many-_

The ginger tumbles back, only to find the biters behind him closing in and doing it quickly. Hinata was remorselessly surrounded. “Shit-“

Clambering on top of the car behind him, the redhead sees biters grabbing at his ankles and threatening to knock him off his feet before he’s even stable; he stomps on them at the wrists and crushes a hand or two off. Oh, he was _fucked. ‘Oh I am fuuuuucked.’_

The car begins wobbling as the biters bang on it from all sides; he can see Kageyama standing feet away from the door of the building, staring at him as Hinata stands with spread legs; _“Kageyama, go! I’ll be fine!!”_

The raven-haired man stares at him in a worried manner that says _“fine my ass”_ before his eyes suddenly flit further upwards beyond Hinata, his eyes widening for reasons unknown.

“Oh god.”

Hinata wants to kick their teeth in but also doesn’t risk moving his feet due to how horribly the car was swaying; god, he was going to fucking _fall-_

And that’s when, even over the harsh pounding of blood in his ears does the sound of whirring fill the void behind the screams of the biters.

It grows louder and louder, Hinata looking over his shoulder just in time to see deep black metal rushing at them, generating a wind so violent it topples a near half of the biters and Hinata goes down onto his hands and knees himself as it passes overhead. Its noise drowns out the man’s accentuated words as it flies in a low sweep just above his head: _“what the fuck??!!”_

It’s a fucking _helicopter,_ and, though loud as hell, taking into consideration that that hadn’t just deafended him, Hinata thinks it’s considerably quieter than most. Now, he doesn’t know shit about aircraft, but it doesn’t take the guy more than a glance to piece together that, with the way that it’s all beefed up, that damn machine isn’t built for _ordinary_ uses. The biters around him all scream in delight, their focus having turned to the chopper wedged between the skyscrapers, its nose tilted down it was flying so fast and Hinata realizes it’s situated not even above the tenth floor of most apartment buildings.

The sound of a brutal collision into one of the biter’s heads regains Hinata’s attention, seeing one of the creatures collapse facedown into the hood of the car with a knife hanging from it. Hinata’s head jerks up with an ecstatically relieved blink; _“Kageya-“_

_“Move it, dumbass!!”_

That helicopter had provided them with one hell of a distraction, and unfortunately Hinata had fallen victim to it as well.

Nearly instantly after this realization does Hinata’s feet slip out from under him as the car rocks and the moment his back is on the ground, he finds that hands with an unpleasant, mushy texture are desperate to touch at his feet and arms. The ginger grunts, not having the time to scream but having the intensity of his fear being reflected in his eyes as he begins lashing at the ones near his feet with the flats of his shoes while simultaneously trying to scramble onto his ass at least. He can tell Kageyama’s right behind his head now, too, fighting off the frenzied biters after his arms so Hinata focuses on clearing the biters around his feet so that he could stand, picking up the muffler he’d let drop. Fuck, they were in _deep_ shit. “Hinata, _go!!”_

The redhead scrabbles to get his feet and launches himself off the hood of the car before he’s even completely upright, nearly falling flat on his face as a result; he’d barely even got to see Kageyama yet. He must’ve dropped their stuff off in the building then came after him. “Make a break for it!”

_“R-right!!”_

Hinata takes off, still insanely distracted by the chopper gaining altitude in the far distance with Kageyama in front of him. He could only trust that the biters were right on his ass, running just as fast as he was, because looking behind him was a risk that the guy couldn’t take. His hip skims against a car and ignites in pain but he didn’t have time to worry about it, he needed to worry about keeping his ass alive. Run. Just fucking _run-_

Kageyama flings himself into the glass doors so hard that his arms get jarred, pulling them open and almost immediately eating shit on the tile floor when Hinata barreled into him right after, screaming. The two of them land in a panicked mess, Kageyama falling flat on his back with Hinata over the top of him, both of them with their heads wheeled towards the doors as they slowly creaked close-

The first biter slams its fist on the glass a fraction of a second later.

 _“Oh hell yes!”_ Hinata cries, fist pumping, his elbow jabbing directly into Kageyama’s gut and making the man lurch; suddenly, Hinata makes sense of where he is. _“Oops,_ sorry,” he mumbles, rearing up onto his knees and sitting on his stomach. “Hey, Kageyama-kun; you look _really hot_ with your bangs brushed out of your face-“

Paying no attention, Kageyama babbles: “What the hell was _that??”_ looking around in an alarmed frenzy and Hinata turns back to the windows trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of anything. If the helicopter was still out there, the biters clogged the view. “They- it had the same contouring as the jets that first bombed the place, looked like a stealth chopper or something, but…” Hinata still heaves for breath, _“I thought they were all gone…?”_

“That was fucking insane, Hinata, whoever was piloting that thing was insane,” exclaims Kageyama, “it swooped at you when it saw you, I’m sure of it- it went for you in like a straight beeline; I thought it was going to suicide bomb you or some shit.”

“Well, it sure didn’t, but it got damn close,” says Hinata, recalling just how closely that thing had dipped above his head, “do you think it was trying to help us...?”

The raven-haired man just scoffs. “By making a _nosedive for us??_ What’re the odds? Speaking of which, don’t think you’re off the hook just because we got a one and a million chance at being saved- we almost just died all because you said we could handle it.”

“Well I mean… we _didn’t_ die, so,” mutters Hinata, _“we’re fine_. Besides, you should really watch who you’re threatening; I could plop down on your balls at any time, sitting up here. _Don’t fuck with me.”_

The raven-haired man just groans and rubs at his eyes with his hands, as Hinata continues on. “Do you think we should go after it...?”

 _“After it?_ The damn _helicopter???”_ repeats Kageyama, “it didn’t seem like it was too intent on stopping…”

Disappointed, Hinata can only shrug. _“Yeah..._ guess you’re right.” He rises to his feet, offering a hand that Kageyama takes. “Let’s just- _get to the rooftops.”_

“Yeah.”

The two trudge forwards. “You gonna tell people about all this?”

Kageyama’s head drops a little. The room is quiet, empty- smelling a little dry from the scent of biters wafting in yet never actually being present. “No. Daichi I will, but _no one else-_ and I’d advise you do the same. The last thing I want is to give people false hope of rescue and then more bombs drop the next day.”

_“That’s fair.”_

The guy seems tense in a way that reeked of frustration. “Kageyama?”

His lip curls beneath his nonbreaking stare in front of him. _“What??”_

“You’ll be fine, you know.” Hinata’s eyebrows sink, “in a day, this’ll all blow over- after all, it’s not like you missed much more than you usually do, gathering-wise. Everything’ll be back to normal and…” Hinata pauses, voice falling, _“you’ll_ be looting again.”

“We’re more than two months into this shit, Hinata,” snarls Kageyama, “we should be more than prepared by now and the only person who can change that is _me._ I will end up responsible for the fall of our fucking home, we all die and it’s all on my shoulders. I don’t know if you understand or even care about that, but it’s how it is and I can’t be leaving the base unprotected while it’s so vulnerable.”

“Well,” sighs Hinata, “you already know _I’d_ be up for the job.”

 _“You?”_ Kageyama sneers.

“Come on, I’m a viable candidate, right? You really seem like you could use someone to help you out- one that actually knows what you’re dealing with. You know, like- a partner? A _pal??”_

The man just snorts imperiously. “If you’re suggesting the idea of you helping me out under any circumstance at any time ever, it’s a _no;_ I’m doing fine on my own, thank you very much.”

“You were just complaining about how you were the only one that could change stuff that went on at the hotel,” Hinata whines, “besides, I saved your life- fucking _twice!_ What the hell do you have against me??”

“Well, other than the fact that you’re batshit annoying and I fucking hate you, it’s nothing personal. People slow me down and the last thing I’m doing is babysitting a guy with the survival sense of a damn loose mutt on the streets.”

Hinata rolls his shoulders. _“Come on, Kageyamaaa-_ think about how much _easier_ it would be to have a partner; someone watching your back, keeping you company- we could be like a duo...!”

“Yeah, some freak duo that’d be.”

“We're buddies, right? Like in the sense of _I scratch your back, you scratch mine_ and then we leave each other alone and put a distance of at least ten feet between us because we want nothing to do with one another??”

Kageyama glares him down. “Yeah, sure, in _that_ sense.”

“Then shake on it!”

_“Hinata-“_

Hinata sneaks in front of him, getting him to stop in his tracks with a hand placed on his hip. “I’m gonna start following you out anyways so you may as well just say we have a deal.”

Kageyama pinches the bridge of his nose, his head hanging. “Look- I _know_ you want back out here or whatever, but I think you’re starting to overstep your damn boundaries. You need to remember who has the higher ranking here and that is fucking me, _not_ you. You were _not supposed_ to run after me. The reason why you’re here is because it was an _accident_ and the result of _defiance_ and I can’t handle disorder in my fucking base. You should respect what I do and let me do my own fucking work.”

Hinata pauses, then goes blank. Kageyama shoves past him. _“Uh-huh.”_

_‘Yeah, I’m totally sneaking out again.’_

Kageyama lifts his hands like he’s trying to find his words, but ultimately throws them down; he’s clearly frustrated, and it made Hinata feel awful. “Let’s just- get _home,_ okay? We don’t have time to waste.”

The redhead pauses to turn back at the door, looking at the biters piling up against it; “yeah.” His voice is at half the intensity of what it was before, shoulders limpening as he looked back at the guy. “Yeah. Let’s go. Just... stop being so hard on yourself.”

_“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, let’s just- find the staircase and get the hell out of here.”_

“Kageyama-kun, you don’t want to talk about _anything,_ do you??”

“Not with you, I don’t. Let’s just get the fuck out before some lurker comes after our asses.”

_“Sure.”_

It doesn’t take them that long to find the staircase, though, and once they do, they’re killing time by how quickly they’re running up it. Not much happens, no lurkers, no nothing. Hinata, trying to lighten the mood, offers: “wanna _race?”_

_“Want me to push you off the railing???”_

So much for that idea. _“No sir.”_

Hinata counts sixteen flights out of boredom before they finally reach the top- though, he may have been wrong because he sucks at everything, but once they get to the door Kageyama shoulders it lightly and it pops open, nearly blinding Hinata with sunlight. _“There.”_

With a hand to the forehead, Hinata’s eyes desperately strain as Kageyama steps out onto it. The roof is white and flat and the buildings around it are relatively the same height and oh boy does it give Hinata a fucking orgasmic surge of energy as he remembers _this. This_ was the fun part of the apocalypse. He darts out in front of Kageyama like he hadn’t just ran more or less sixteen flights of stairs, pointing into the distance. “Kageyama, you can kinda see the hotel from here! Told you we’re not that far off- all we gotta do is _floor it.”_

“Hang on, idiot,” Kageyama growls, “we just ran up like a million flights of stairs, _take a breather.”_

Hinata rolls his eyes- stupid Kageyama, already ruining his fun. “Alright, well, while you sit around and play _asthma attack,_ you’d best be watching and learning, all right?”

“Hinata…”

_“... Hinata!!”_

The ginger barely hears Kageyama behind the wind in his ears as he makes a beeline for the other roof in a dead sprint. There’s not that big of a distance between the two flats, but like fuck is he _not_ giving it his all- he’s waited a month to impress Kageyama like this.

Throwing his arms back and swinging with his jump, Hinata sails through the air, waiting for the drop that was just a few feet below him-

The redhead hits the ground with a successfully experimental tuck-and-roll, his hand stopping him without a single scrape on it.

_‘Amazing.’_

Hinata laughs to himself as he turns his head, searching for Kageyama; “see! Not that hard.”

Kageyama had followed him up to the very edge, looking down on him by a couple feet with an expression beyond that of terrified. _“What the fuck???”_

 _“Come oonnn, pussy-_ it gets less scary once you get used to it…!”

Staring as Hinata beckons him with the curling of the finger, Kageyama seems to realize the situation he’d got himself in and the fact that he couldn’t back down. Hinata watches Kageyama catch a glimpse of the ground and immediately turn from it; _‘not scared of heights my left testicle.’_

“Alright, I’m coming.”

Hinata stands back up as Kageyama pulls out of view for his running start; “remember, _don’t chicken out!_ The momentum will just make you fall to your death!!” Such words of encouragement.

Hinata knows Kageyama’s started off when footsteps echo into the quiet air, and his focus becomes full as he awaits Kageyama. _‘Please don’t fall to your death, fucking please don’t fall to your death-‘_

And when Kageyama comes launching over the ledge, Hinata just fucking _stares._ Oh. _Damn,_ hot _damn_ was that imagery going to haunt his dreams like a goddamn nightmare. Shirt flowing up to his stomach and exposing the base of his abs, hair pushed dramatically out of his face- was there a thing on the planet that Kageyama could do unattractively? It made Hinata almost angry, how dumb, how unfair-

Landing stiffly, Hinata backs away as Kageyama hits the ground a foot or two away in a half-squat, beginning matter-of-factly: “yeah, you might wanna try landing on the flats of your feet next time...”

_“I did it.”_

The redhead blinks suddenly as Kageyama looks up at him like he’d just done something extravagant; _“I did it.”_

Caught off guard by stoic Kageyama’s childish response, Hinata breathes a laugh through his nose. No way he wasn’t afraid of heights. “Not so bad, is it?”

The man shakes his head.

“Well, then.” Hinata takes a step back. “You take the lead.”

“What?” The raven-haired man doesn’t sound so sure about that. _“Why??”_

Hinata lifts up his hand, showing off the bandage on his hand; “well, to start off, my hand hurts like _hell_ so I might need help...”

As he blinks at him, for a moment, Hinata fears that Kageyama’s energy had suddenly left him with this suggestion. But, his determination returns a split second later, and it shows in the way Kageyama turns and takes off, first at a slowish run but pushing it into a dead sprint as he gets halfway across the building. And again, Hinata stares, grinning this time, proud in a way he couldn't exactly describe but knew was evident. Kageyama jumps and latches onto the building _easy,_ swinging his body up and over in two quick motions. The redhead runs a hand through his hair, pushing his stringy, damp-with-sweat bangs out of his eyes. _“I’m ready!”_

With a nod from Kageyama, who was still on his knees near the edge, Hinata takes off, making sure to run his hardest, making sure that he looked as cool as he possibly could in front of that bastard, _good-at-everything Kageyama._ In the split second that he jumps, somehow he catches the light in Kageyama’s eyes as he draws near.

_Hinata trusts him._

Hitting the ledge, he finds an immediate warmth clasped around his dominant arm, dragging him up into a warm body which had seen equal amounts of hell and trauma as he had today. Kageyama rises to his feet and tows Hinata along with him, hands still clasped around his arm with their bodies no less than an inch apart. Hinata can literally smell just how exhausted Kageyama is from the sweat accumulating on his skin and the dryness of his breath, but even still...

Those eyes of his _gleamed._

“You know, you aren’t all that bad once you let people get to know you,” Hinata says, head tilted, and Kageyama chuckles, his breath ruffling the ginger’s hair- but what really stuck with him was that laugh. It was pretty. “And you’re equally as annoying as I made you out to be, but at least you know what you’re doing...”

_“Hey.”_

Releasing his arm, Kageyama steps away so he could turn around. _“Wanna race?”_

Hinata’s eyelids flit halfway over his eyes, joking: “you want me to push you off the ledge...?”

_“... Of course I wanna race. Stupid.”_

Kageyama grins while Hinata rolls the kinks out of his neck, saying as he positioned himself next to him: “anything that’s hard for me to grab is cheating though, this has to be a fucking friendlyass race.”

The raven-haired man gives him this smirk like _he’s_ the one going to win; _yeah, right._ Hinata lines up next to him, grinning from ear to ear as Kageyama placed himself. “On your mark- _fuck you-“_ the ginger pushes him back and springs off, hearing Kageyama howl as he did him dirty and Hinata just laughs into the air as he nears the end of the flat in no time. “That’s _cheating, asshole!”_

_“So what?? You’re gonna lose, anyways!”_

Hinata flings himself off the first roof; Kageyama was already at a distinct disadvantage, as Hinata knew how to land better than Kageyama did… or so Hinata had thought. Kageyama wasn’t _nearly_ as bad as the redhead would’ve expected from a beginner, though it wasn’t all that shocking considering Kageyama’s prior profession. But still, for the guy’s first time, kinda irked Hinata that he could still hear the raven-haired man’s feet echoing right behind him in the wind.

He was a challenge, all right.

Darting from building to building, Hinata looks back not once until he was eventually faced with a ledge that Hinata knew he couldn’t get up unless Kageyama was there. So, he stops, turning and heaving- fuck, his ribs hurt a little. Worth it. Kageyama appears beside him a few seconds later, muttering between his heaving: _“fucking… showoff… cheater showoff-“_

The redhead puts his hands on his knees, trying his best to laugh at him though his lungs were shot. “You know... can I…”

“Can I _ask you something...?”_

Kageyama doesn’t respond but Hinata proceeds anyways; “why aren’t you... like this at the hotel?”

There’s eye contact. “What do you mean...?”

“Why aren't you- just-“ Hinata gestures to all of him because he can’t find the words, _“this??”_

Kageyama stares at him a little, like he still didn’t understand. Hinata stretches back to his full height. “You’re just- you’re _mean_ to everyone there, extremely mean to me, but- _not out here._ Why is that...?”

The man sighs and tilts his head back towards the sky, the amount of sweat on his face and neck becoming visible underneath the sun’s rays; _“I get stressed out there really easily,_ I suppose. People stress me out in general, and everyone there either thinks it their place to boss me around or to avoid me there...”

And suddenly, Kageyama’s perspective is opened up to Hinata.

That this people-hating, or- _antisocial_ or _whatever he was_ person was constantly being pushed by other people, and being in a place of such open hatred and dislike towards him made Kageyama feel unobligated to listen to anything anyone else had to say… it made him sick and annoyed and not want to do _anything_ but what _he wanted;_ like he could prove that the way he did shit would pay off in the end...

Hinata suddenly understands Kageyama and empathizes with him.

But before Hinata can respond to anything, Kageyama’s blinking again: “what the hell…?”

“What??” Hinata turns in his direction, finding not to long afterwards that…

 _“Looks like it’s still hanging around,”_ comments Kageyama, watching the black dot some distance away float above their heads- the helicopter didn’t seem to be in quite the frenzy it had been before. “Wish we knew what the hell it was doing,” replies Hinata. He doesn’t know what it is or why it’s here, but quite frankly, it had already scared him shitless once without killing him- he didn’t have a whole lot of fear left in his heart. In fact, all that remains in his mind is curiosity as he asks: “what do _you_ think it’s doing…?“

“I don’t know, but I don’t think they’re... exactly _bad,”_ replies Kageyama, “I feel like they had a clear opportunity at obliterating us and they never did.”

“Maybe it’s a scout? Maybe it’s trying to look for an actual base so it can send rescue...”

“Yeah, _or blow us to pieces._ Because a scout would _totally_ be a jet black war machine with the same decals as the bomber planes.”

“Shut up and let me dream,” mutters Hinata.

And that’s when, out of nowhere, something falls from one of the chopper’s sides as it lifts a few yards higher, plummeting for only a couple of seconds before it catches the draft and a parachute lifts from its top, red smoke billowing from where it falls. “What the fuck is that?” Kageyama asks, seemingly stiff.

It’s got a rectangular shape to it, whatever it is, and seems to be fairly heavy considering the speed at which it descends with its massive chute attached. Hinata recognizes it immediately, from every piece of war media he’s seen from fictional to documentary: “that’s a _supply drop, Kageyama,_ it’s gotta be.”

“A fucking _drop??”_ Yeah, no matter how reckless those pilots were, this was not some hijacked rescue chopper- whoever was dropping that was a force _beyond_ the civilians surviving the apocalypse. “But if that helicopter is in the same group as the jets, then why would it be helping us or other people out...?”

The question on everyone’s minds. Hinata watches the chopper suddenly speed off before banking and beginning to go in the direction it came; “I dunno, but- it’s _not that far…”_

Immediately Kageyama shuts him down, “hell no, we are _not_ going after whatever falls from the maw of the bombers. We can’t even be sure what that thing is or who it’s meant for- if it’s even something lootable at _all.”_

“If that crate _is_ full of shit, Kageyama-kun, then you might not have to be searching for weeks,” Hinata reminds, and Kageyama’s face seems to lift in enlightenment at this. “Let’s at least go check it out before that flare burns out or the sun gets too high.”

Very quick to have a change of heart, Kageyama doesn’t seem to have any fight left in him after that proposal- after all, he wants the guys back at home off his neck just as badly as Hinata wants to stay out here. _“Okay..._ Just- don’t get too close until we know what it is.”

And so, their adventure gets extended- at least by twenty or so more minutes, whatever counted. Hinata’s just glad he’d taken ibuprofen before he left the house, glad he ran after Kageyama that night because neither of them would be where they were had this not happened.

Hinata takes the lead, commenting: “I think it must’ve landed on another rooftop. Looks a little short, but that smoke is too condensed to be the ground.”

“Right.” Kageyama’s gotten the swing of this whole rooftops thing, though, once again, it doesn’t really surprise Hinata that much; he wasn’t so sure there wasn’t _anything_ that Kageyama couldn't learn with an hour’s worth of time. “We really needed gloves for this shit,” comments Hinata, “I can practically feel my fingers being shredded from the friction of concrete.”

“Your idea, dumbass.”

As much as he hated Kageyama and his vulgar nicknames, he thought his excessive usage of _“dumbass”_ never got old- like it was the only insult he had in his vocabulary and he never even knew how to tag it creatively.

The red smoke still rises thick into the air and it’s not difficult to navigate even where it roosts- though, Hinata thinks that it could’ve been a little more conveniently placed in relevance to their location, but like this world made jack shit easy, having to bounce around roofs at a pace moderate in consideration but tediously slow for experienced Hinata. The redhead teaches Kageyama more tricks along the way, mostly fundamentals but it takes Kageyama all of two tries to understand what he’s doing flawlessly and it really makes Hinata want to push his limits. _‘I wanna put that guy and his snarky, anything you can do I can do better attitude to the test,’_ thinks Hinata, _‘I wanna teach him more, I want to beat him at his fullest and see how he likes it.’_

Hinata does nothing more than quicken his pace, though. His body hurt too much to test himself against Kageyama, yet- he wasn’t at his fullest, either.

Atop a ledge, the crate can be seen with full clarity, but before the men can get a good look at it, Kageyama drags Hinata back by the collar of his shirt and pulls him back. Before much protest escapes the guy, he’s reminded through husky growl that “someone could be down there,” and though Hinata doesn’t believe it one bit, he follows Kageyama’s precaution.

With the raven-haired man regaining his lead, the two cautiously peer over the roof they reside on. And, sure enough, on top of a rooftop maybe twenty or so feet below, a wooden crate littered with kanji and romaji intelligible to Hinata resides. A deep black parachute dangles off the edge of a balcony, occasionally threatening to lift off again whenever a breeze drifts and Hinata looks to Kageyama after a short examination. He sees his eyes flitting back and forth around the area, scanning every nook and cranny just trying to ensure their safety and nothing happens. “Wish I would’ve brought my gun,” whispers Kageyama, looking mildly displeased and Hinata just pulls the muffler the guy had wedged into a pocket of his bag. “We gonna go before someone else gets here? I think if we drop onto that balcony and then hoist ourselves over we could get to it easier.”

“I don’t like that flare, though. If there are any other survivors up here like we are, they’ll be able to see that smoke from _miles away.”_

“I don’t like it, either,” Hinata remarks, “lets just loot what we can, see if we can stomp it out or something.”

“Yeah.”

Hinata goes first, dropping down onto that balcony. Thankfully, nothing’s too damaged around here, and he feels secure as he watches Kageyama fall next to him, still clearly not used to knowing how to land on his feet. The leap between the two, now _that_ was intimidating when you looked down- but, beyond that, not much different than what they’d grown accustomed to. Hinata made it fine, Kageyama made it fine- before he even got onto the rooftop Hinata was after that damn flare, taking the knife the was given earlier and prodding at the thick ropes with it- which, with its slender blade, doesn’t do a whole lot. “You have anything to cut this?” Asks Hinata, tugging at the ropes which gave him heavy resistance, “looks like the crate is tied down with this shit, too.”

“I mean, I have an army knife somewhere, but those ropes look thick as hell,” responds Kageyama, and Hinata sighs. “I’ll look for something to put this out with in the meantime, then- like a rock or something.”

 _“Don’t get lost,_ ” warns Kageyama, and Hinata scoffs. “I’ve got about a twenty five meter radius to explore, I think I’ll be okay.”

But the rooftop doesn’t house too much, a roof exit, like twenty generators and an old, wooden table- nothing they’d be able to use. Hell, an old glass bottle would be enough and yet there was nothing, not on the ground not on the surfaces of the tables or the generators, nothing. “How’s it going back there?” The guy calls.

“They’re coming easier than I thought,” replies Kageyama, voice heightened over the wind and Hinata stares, seeing him on one knee, tearing up the ropes until they’d eventually break free. _‘God, he’s so hot,’_ Hinata dreams in frustration as he waddles away, _‘why’d he have to be so hot, of all people to be hot around here-‘_

And that’s when Hinata notices that he’s staring at another pair of eyes- a different pair of eyes, not Kageyama’s, and not a biter’s…

At the same time that Hinata’s eyes light up in shock, so do the others, the door to the exit cracked to reveal a pair of men far bigger than him- bigger than Kageyama, even. And before Hinata can even call out there’s a blade driving its tip into Hinata’s throat, so much so it feels like the skin protecting his fragile trachea is going to at pop any second and Hinata raises his hands into the air as a tattooed arm and a face just as scared as his own begins pushing him back.

 _“You thought you could beat us here, huh???”_ The man’s voice sounds crazed, fearful. Hinata manages to scramble far back enough to escape the blade at his throat but the man keeps it lodged no further than an inch or two away from his face, “you and your little… _little possy-“_

There’s so much going on, Hinata doesn’t understand this man’s hostility or tone. All he can manage is a stutter: “we- we don’t mean any harm, _honest-“_ before his ass backs against a generator, eyes desperately glancing over in the direction of Kageyama, finding him nowhere to be seen. The man’s hair is dark, almost as dark as Kageyama’s, though it was kept much shorter and his face and eyes were shaped much differently, rounder but still sharp. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days and, with the way he acted, Hinata would believe it. “Who- _who are-“_

His knife is much bigger than Kageyama’s. Made for cutting, made for tearing. The man grabs at the collar of Hinata’s shirt, a loud thud emitting from the generator as he hisses, _“you know me.”_

The redhead’s eyes are bugging out of his head in confusion. “Uh, _very sure I don’t-“_

And that’s when something collided with the side of the generator beneath him, a deep _“hey!”_ being emitted through a snarl as a familiar weapon embeds itself into the metal. Hinata’s eyes flit to Kageyama, relieved, only to find him already raising his hands with defeated eyes. Just behind the guy pinning Hinata down does the second man appear, who stands about the same height as Kageyama but absolutely swamps him in muscle mass. Black hair overlaps white in an unnaturally long cut that seemed as if it was intended to be slicked back most of the time, muscles rippling beneath tough skin as Kageyama gets approached with a glock aiming directly at the nose. _‘This is it,’_ thinks Hinata, braving a swallow with the knife still at his neck, _‘we’re done for. Sorry, Kageyama.’_

“You’re awful well kept, aren’t you?” The man approaching Kageyama asks, and Hinata finds his lip curling, restless even though he’s sure that even if he were free, that man would tank him in seconds. _“This one’s not,”_ the man above him snorts, and Hinata finds his fear morphing into anger with a grimace, hands twitching out at their sides, “it’s a shame that he’s got so many people and yet he utilizes the weak ones like this-“

“What the fuck are you talking about? _Who_ are you talking about??” Hinata spits, only to have that blade sink so far into his throat he had to tip his head back to escape it piercing his skin. He thinks he feels a droplet if blood or two spill in the moments the knife left. “I think you’re mistaking us for someone else,” he hears Kageyama say lowly.

There’s a long delay before the man approaching Kageyama calls: “do you recognize that one...?”

Hinata sees greenish blue eyes flit back and forth between his own. “No,” he responds, but nothing lets up as the black and white haired man circles around Kageyama with his gun still pointed, putting himself in between him and the crate. _“What’re your names...?”_

“Kageyama,” the raven-haired man replies, “Kageyama and Hinata.”

Hinata doesn’t know the plan of action at all, doesn’t know if he wants to be a diplomat or start a fight the two were bound to lose. Neither sounded too promising.

The black and white haired man shakes his head, “not familiar.”

“They could be new,” the black-haired one reminds, “after all, not just anyone is this well fed in the apocalypse. I’m sorry, but we can’t trust a damn word that you say.”

Frustration boils in Hinata’s stomach. “Look, we thought all survivors in this area that weren’t our own were _dead,”_ responds Kageyama, watching in despair as the man at the crate began unboxing it’s contents. Hinata can’t see much of it, but knows he’s hitting a jackpot on jars and little things like ammo and batteries, “we don’t know who you guys are or what group you’re talking about; just let us get back to _our_ group, and you won’t have to worry about a second one coming for your asses. You can have whatever the hell is in this crate.”

The two hostile men seem to pause for a second. “Where’s your base…?”

 _‘So many questions,’_ thinks Hinata- if this weren’t a life or death situation, he would’ve said it out loud. “South from here,” Kageyama replies vaguely, “and it’s… _not small.”_

The man at the crate begins lowering things into a bag, Hinata chimes in, “are you guys saying there are _other_ bases in the area…?”

“I don’t know if I’d say the area, but plenty of other big bases exist if it intrigues you so much,” the man above him replies, and Hinata looks away in thought.

_‘... Kenma could still be out there.’_

“We’re sorry if we caused you trouble, we’re not looking for it,” replies Kageyama. He seemed stunned by the idea that, in all of Tokyo, there were other bases within walking distance of here. “We just… we’d been locked out of our base all night and saw this… this _thing_ fall from the sky and figured we should check it out before the lurkers got to it-“

 _“Thing?_ You’ve never seen-“ the man looting the crate cuts himself off, and the black haired man’s eyebrows fall as they exchange glances. “You two don’t know what’s going on _at all,_ do you…?”

“Can we quit the rhyme and riddle chat, please?” Hinata asks sourly, “I think it’s very clear that _neither of us get what’s going on.”_

And again, with exchanged shock, the two look at one another. The black and white haired man is quick to finish filling his bag and let the lid slam back shut, gun still held at Kageyama’s face as he slunk back to his partner. Quickly, as the man passes behind him, the pressure on Hinata’s throat is lifted, and he watches with a tender rub to the wound and a bold glare as the two begin heading towards the door without so much as a turn of the shoulder. As they slowly backpedal, Hinata sees the barrel of that gun move between the two, a deep sigh coming from the back of his throat as the man pulls a second, fresh handgun from the back of his pocket; _“God, I hope you two aren’t who we think you are.”_

But this time, instead of holding it out in a threatening gesture, the man lobs it into the clearing between them, a couple of packets of ammo following in its wake. “We won’t share the same kind of mercy if we see you two with familiar people next time.”

And with that, the black haired man going first, the two disappear through the door and leave Hinata and Kageyama alone once again- this time with a lot more to think about than just the contents of that crate. Hinata looks down at his hand to see the tips of his fingers covered with blood stringing between them.

 _“They seem nice,”_ mumbles Hinata, an annoying sting left on his throat as he turns back to Kageyama, “did- _anything_ those guys say make sense to you??? I thought I was gonna get my head sawed off.”

Kageyama shakes his head. He’s still very clearly shaken up as he stands with his shoulders hunched, as if someone were still holding a gun to his head; “what the fuck were they talking about...? Some- _different base??”_ He seems to stop short, stiffening. “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, and I about pissed myself, too- leaking from just about everywhere.”

The raven-haired man lobs his bag at him, telling him to put rubbing alcohol on it- which he does. Hinata’s wound was barely beyond the flesh, but it still stung upon cleansing it, wincing in pain as he waddled over to the crate that was beginning to sway with the parachute’s drag and the lack of weight. Kageyama seems in a hurry to pick up the gun left lying on the ground, quick to load it and Hinata admits that after the tension they’d just escaped from, the tone of the area was eerily quiet- _suspicious,_ almost. He half expects the two to reappear, and it crosses Hinata’s mind in question if he’d ever see those two again… wasn’t sure he hoped so. Either way, he'll never forget them.

The idea of new bases in the area gave Hinata hope- though, if they were all just as hostile as those two men, getting Kenma back from their clutches may just be the hardest thing he’s ever done.

“Did you see what all they took?”

“Good stuff,” is Kageyama’s dry reply, “though, nothing I can say we didn’t already have a bounty of…”

“Well, at least there’s that.”

“Still fucking _sucks._ I would’ve been willing to share with them if they hadn’t made their first impression with a knife to your throat.”

Sullenly, Hinata tips the crate open and, at once, Hinata’s head tilts in interest. “Hey, Kageyama- _they left stuff in here!”_

The man perks up immediately from where he deals with the gun’s clip, “like what…???”

Hinata rummages through it. “There’s lots of medical stuff in here- and canned stuff, enough to fill that empty bag of yours, anyways. Gun shells, batteries, a flashlight, an extra bag…”

The man’s eyes slowly begin to widen as something far, far bigger catches his eye. “... is this even _legal??”_

He hears Kageyama’s footsteps as he approaches him, the heat from his skin wafting over to Hinata without touch. “What do you mean…?”

And upon realization, Kageyama’s face takes a mirror of Hinata’s, a quiet _“oh”_ as Hinata leans into the crate. A gun, a _big gun,_ like we’re talking military-sized, unobtainable through means other than the black market gun rests in his palms, Hinata keeping his fingers as far away as he possibly can from the barrel and the trigger as he slowly lifts it from the box. It’s insanely heavy, which doesn't surprise him from the size of it- he can’t place a finger on what kind it is, but it’s definitely semi-automatic if not full. Ennoshita would know.

A dry scoff comes from the man next to him. “Still think that chopper wasn’t the same people who blew us all to hell?” Asks Kageyama. Hinata just blinks and shakes his head.

There’s a lot going on in his head, but Hinata’s only response is: _“I don’t… understand.”_

“Me neither,” replies Kageyama, pulling out what seemed to be it’s bullets, “but let’s get moving before some other pair shows up and decides to not show the same mercy.”

He doesn’t seem to be so shaken up about the ordeal as Hinata is, nor thinking too deeply about just why on earth a gun _this big_ was being dropped in loot crates. Kageyama’s bag hits the floor again and Hinata begins piling things in there, everything they can fit. “I’ll carry the bag, you carry the gun,” offers Hinata.

Kageyama shoots him a look as the gun strings over his back with a strap, “race at the top?”

Blinking away his shock, Hinata gives him a slowly spreading smile.

 _“Yeah._ Race at the top.”

After an imprecise twenty minutes to a half an hour of just navigating across buildings and deciding to be idiots racing with extra fifteen pounds worth of weight on their backs, after a long morning’s journey and unsettling new information, the pair is just buildings away from base. They can see the men in the clearing; they’re quieter than usual but the two pay no attention- winning is the only thing on their fragile minds. An emergency door cracks open at the bottom of one of the buildings and once they’re down those stairs the ground is spinning beneath their feet, stampeding across the stretch that led to their base with a hoarse: _“let us in!!”_

There’s some commotion before the door to the base gets flung open and Hinata gives it hell, Kageyama right there next to him, seething, keeping pace- he grabs at the straps of his bag and pushes them forwards to keep the weight on his back stabilized as his strides got even more vigorous-

The redhead yells as he crashes through the doors, taking a good few extra steps to keep himself from falling flat on his nose as his hands throw into the air: _“I won!”_

“Like _fuck_ you won.”

Turning back to Kageyama, Hinata grins wickedly as they approach one another, “no way, dickhead- I won that fair and square. You’re just jealous because you let a _half cripple_ beat you.”

Kageyama beams back, somewhere between amused and irritated, “my foot hit the inside of the gates like a whole two steps before yours did!”

“Yeah, right!” Hinata rolls his eyes, “Nishinoya-san, who do you think-“

The redhead stops dead in his tracks, jolting as he recognized the looks he was getting from all of them- all except one, that is. _‘Uh oh.’_

Hinata shrinks away as Ennoshita stalks towards them, “got some explaining to do, there, Kageyama-san??”

Sliding the gun from off his back, Ennoshita seems bewildered as Kageyama presents it to him, the rest of the guys all gathering around to get a glimpse as Kageyama dips his head, “I’m sorry, we... _got held up._ Had to hole up for the night.”

Ennoshita’s eyes direct back upwards; “where the hell did you find _this…?”_

And at once, Hinata’s there, recalling Kageyama’s reluctance to want to tell people about all that happened and covering for him smoothly, “we found it all lying around a spot that had been heavily damaged by bombs- we’re not so sure what it was doing there, but it wasn’t shy of extra bullets, either.”

The guys would believe that; they didn’t know this world beyond what was just ahead of them. Hinata drops the bag off his shoulders and rubs out the knots there, watching Ennoshita glare at him. Tanaka, with a much calmer and more intrigued approach, asks them, “what happened out there?”

“I was surrounded by a bunch of lurkers…” Kageyama begins, then pauses, “no, I was _ambushed-_ hadn’t been paying enough attention and was about to be gutted if it hadn’t been for this dumbass back here.”

Hinata shoots him a tiny, cheeky grin before getting interrupted but Ennoshita: “well, I hope you two know you had the entire base in a fucking _fit_ last night. What were you thinking, trying to leave the base so damn _late??_ And don’t even get me started on you, Hinata-san- once again you could’ve made the death count in this base fucking _double._ Yachi-san was worried _sick_ about you.”

Guilt hits Hinata like a strike to the gut, _“Yacchan-_ look, I didn't- I don’t mean to cause problems-“

 _“But you have been,”_ Ennoshita retorts, “these last two days, we’ve almost lost two working members of our base because of your reckless actions over a moral code written into this base!!”

Hinata feels himself heating up, fists balling at his sides. He doesn’t know how to say what he wants out loud, not without challenging the words of a superior. _‘You wouldn’t be saying that if it were Tanaka’s life on the line,’_ he muses internally, _‘you wouldn’t be saying that at all unless Kageyama the one we’re talking about, you just want him gone-’_

“So this base’s morals are to be _selfish??”_

There’s a challenging step that the man next to him takes and Hinata lets out a low, warning growl: _“Kageyama-“_

“I’ll admit that I’m pissed at Hinata too for his stupidity and irresponsibility, but he saved my ass more than once out there, Ennoshita-san; he’s more than capable of holding his own and trying to cage that potential is just going to piss him off more. Besides, it’s never happening again, so don’t cross your fingers for a second time.” Hinata’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach.

For the first time since he woke up in this damn place, someone had believed in him.

And, of all people, it was fucking _Kageyama_. Somehow, that didn’t surprise Hinata one bit. Shock is imminent on everyone’s faces.

Bowing with his hands pinned to his sides, Hinata says: “I’m sorry for the panic we caused, really. We’re both sorry.”

Ennoshita still fucking sneers. _“You’d better be.”_

Not a second passes before Kageyama has a knife at that man’s throat.

The guys including Hinata all scream as the redhead gets pushed back with a hand to the chest- Ennoshita flinches away on instinct and the tip rakes along the underside of his jaw, just deep enough to break skin and pull out cat’s scratch worth of blood. Ennoshita squeals and slugs a fist in a blind panic only to worsen the situation for himself as Kageyama tosses it away and grabs a handful of the collar of his shirt as it exposes, rendering him immobile again his body as the same knife that ripped him open before now threatening a deeper one in his throat. _“Wanna repeat that, smartass???”_

_“Kageyama, stop!!!”_

Latching onto Kageyama’s shoulder, Hinata yanks him back, Kinoshita and Tanaka both coming up behind Ennoshita to tear them apart. Even with Hinata’s tugging, Kageyama remains insistent, shouldering him off as he screams, _“motherfucker wants to act like this every time someone steps foot outside the base then he’d better learn to drop that high-and-mighty attitude while he sits on his fucking ass all day!!!”_

Hinata wedges his way in between the two as Ennoshita is ripped off, too stunned to react by the blood leaking onto his shirt- “Jesus fuck- _stop it, Kageyama._ They have a reason to be mad right now, just- just let me _explain_ this to them-“

Kageyama’s chest is heaving, eyes still intent on the man a few feet away from him with his infurated breath flaring from his nostrils as Hinata shoves at him, whispering: “remember what we fucking talked about? How people see you as a fucking _monster??”_ He gestures heavily to Ennoshita and the blood he was stained in, _“this_ is not earning you any sort of brownie points. _Stop.”_

Kageyama meets his eyes, bright and inflamed as Hinata’s fingers curl into the front of his shirt. _“Please,_ Kageyama.”

The redhead notices that Kageyama’s eyes grow darker the more he continues to plead.

_‘“I get stressed out there really easy, I suppose. People stress me out in general and everyone there either thinks it their place to boss me around or to avoid me.”’_

This here- this wasn’t the same Kageyama that Hinata had been outside the walls with.

“They’ll listen to me, now get out of here before you do more harm- or they start realizing the situation and gang up on you.”

Kageyama looks from Hinata, to everyone staring, then back up again with his eyes twitching as he tosses the knife in his hands into the dirt in a bout of defiance before shoving Hinata off of him. _“Get a shower, you smell like shit,”_ is the last thing that Kageyama says before he’s storming into the base- thank god. Hinata turns to them, relieved, hearing Kinoshita call for someone to get Yachi-san.

“Are you okay, Ennoshita-san?”

Ennoshita just wipes underneath his chin, muttering “fine.”

Hinata isn’t so sure what to say after all that- he feels bad but no way in hell did Hinata feel as if Ennoshita hadn’t deserved that.

“Well hey, that’s a first!” Somewhere behind him, Nishinoya calls, “he brought a full bag’s worth of supplies to make up for his lost time, at least!”

“And a badass gun,” adds Tanaka, and Hinata can tell by the face that Ennoshita makes at their praise that if he hadn’t just experienced a life-or-death situation, he would be protesting right now. _“Yo, Hinata.”_

Again, Hinata jumps. “What…?”

Right next to him, Nishinoya says with a hand to the shoulder: “I’ve never seen Kageyama, like- _defend_ anyone before, that was crazy. You’re like- the dipshit whisperer or something.”

What more had he been expecting. Again, he says with a little more confusion than the last: _“What?”_

“One must be ranked in the highest level of dipshittery to be able to tame even those with no brain. All bow to Hinata, supreme dipshit.” Nishinoya pins his arms to his side and bows in front of him.

The ginger’s not so sure that Nishinoya isn’t on his side over this ordeal, even as much as he argued with Kageyama.

“It was the dry humping.”

Nishinoya goes red. “Jeez, just wait till you suck his dick.”

Hinata has to sink a bite into his lip to keep himself from laughing as he apologizes loudly: “I’m sorry for the trouble both of us have given you all, I’m sure Kageyama’s after Daichi this very moment…”

But as Hinata goes on to explain Kageyama’s actions and him saving him without revelation of his motives or what had happened, the guys almost seemed skeptical about it.

No matter what Hinata said, their views on Kageyama remained the same. He tried to not be surprised about it, but it disappointed him, if he’s honest.

_“Hinata-kun??!”_

Oh, Hinata knows _that_ voice. “Yacchan,” Hinata whispers, barreling towards her. He can hear her crying already and Yachi flings herself into his arms, squeezing him tightly until she suddenly begins slapping at his back, “wait, get off- _get off, you smell gross oh my god!!”_

Hinata pries himself off of her, raising his hands in apology as Yachi literally chokes from his scent; _“I-I’m sorry!!”_

Tanaka snickers behind them, Sugawara coming to the aid of Ennoshita as Yachi looks back up, still crying. _“Oh my god, Hinata-“_ She suddenly grabs at the braids in his hair and jerks them downwards, bringing him down to her level with Hinata squealing in pain; “don’t you _ever_ do that _ever_ again; _you-_ I was- I was so scared!”

“I told you he wasn’t dead.” Hinata turns to see his sister approaching him, grateful to see eyes without hostility for the first time since he walked into the base and especially for it to be Natsu’s temperamental ass of all people’s. He lets his guard down with her only for the girl to strike out her foot and wheel him right in the balls, getting Hinata to yowl and double over into Yachi as she says, _“that’s_ for scaring us, idiot.”

Yachi scrambles away from Hinata’s rotten scent again and Hinata nearly collapses, still hunched over and clutching the front of his pants. “You’d best fill me in on the next time you decide to up and run away from the base, or else you’ll get more than just a kick to the balls.” Didn’t doubt that for a second.

 _“Fine-_ I’ll tell you what I’m planning next, then.”

Both of them seem to stiffen. “Huh?”

Hinata’s voice lowers as he looks directly in front of him. _“Yachi-san, can you keep a secret??”_

Ennoshita hadn’t been seriously wounded. Nothing more than a scrape along the jawline, there was a likelihood that it wouldn’t even leave a scratch.

 _‘A shame, really,’_ Kageyama thinks. Only would’ve felt worth it if he would’ve gotten a scar out of it.

Underneath a black sky, Kageyama’s already awake and immediately fidgety, restless. The raven-haired man stretches beneath his covers, yawning, making sure to get up a little bit slower than he wanted to so not to give himself vertigo.

Hardly even light out yet, Kageyama knew it was time to run.

He found himself equipped with a new handgun, the one the mystery man had tossed at him, as it held more ammo than his last clip. Kageyama still had yet to tell Daichi about what all had happened, or interact with anyone since last night’s incident, if he’s honest. Not sure he wanted to look anyone in the eyes right now in fear he’d end up slugging them or something, something violent.

The man quickly brushes his teeth, not bothering with anything beyond deodorant until it was nighttime- he was bound to get dirty anyways...

_‘“Also your face is covered in blood and it fucking reeks. Looks badass, though.”’_

That motherfucker.

Believe it or not, Hinata made Kageyama angry- not only in a general sense, but angry at himself for reasons he couldn’t place a finger on. All that stupid redhead did was nag at him and annoy him and try to get too deep into his personal life and fling sexual comments his way and yet, still, Kageyama yearned for the guy to just… _get out of here._ Away from these judgemental people, away from these people who just couldn’t get it after all these days. Hell, up on those rooftops, Kageyama couldn’t deny that he’d enjoyed Hinata’s presence there- that if it had been anyone else out there, likelihood was he would’ve shoved them off from those heights and labeled it an accident. It didn’t make any damn sense, Hinata wasn’t anything more than a nuisance to both him and the base and yet…

Yet, Hinata was like _him._ Undeserving of how he was treated, a free spirit that just wanted to be damn free. And behind that dumb, pervy exterior, Hinata knew what it took to survive; even if it wasn’t the smartest way of doing so, it was admirable. Hinata was a risk-taker, another trait that people like Ennoshita refused to understand.

Hinata couldn’t prove his worth out there because every time he tried to show it, they shut him down. Hinata deserved more than to be holed up in here, whether he came back or not, the lifestyle of a civilian here was not Hinata’s cut and he wouldn’t have it that way.

Spitting out his toothpaste, Kageyama watches it circle the drain, deep in thought. The man’s already irritated and he knows it’s because the first thing on his mind is Hinata and Ennoshita; god, he itches to get the hell out of here even more than usual today.

And so that’s what he does; putting on a simple gray tank top and some lengthy shorts, his increasingly worn athletic shoes, and double checking through his stuff before he’s off and headed towards the door...

The very few early risers in the hallways never meet his eyes and just scuffle out of his way as to _narrowly_ escape his path, making it seem like _“oh! It was an accident!!”_ Kageyama should ask them why they move to the opposite side of the hallway next time.

The raven-haired man pushes his way out the front doors, dipping his head to Asahi but giving him no vocal greeting as he does so. The other guys are all already crowded around the gates, talking obnoxiously loud, per usual…

But Kageyama notices very quickly which voice is _not there_ and it makes him squint amongst the other men.

Kageyama’s hand tightens as he approaches them; he hates the way that it tears beneath his skin. It’s probably just a misunderstanding; Hinata probably had to go take a leak or something, or maybe he wasn’t up yet. He’d had a rough day yesterday; yeah, surely that was it...

 _‘Fuck.’_ Somehow, something felt off. So off. Hinata was always here.

“Hey- uh, _Tanaka-san-“_

Immediately, the guys pipe down, recognizing his voice and turning. Ennoshita was sitting the morning out- probably due to the wound on his jaw. _“Where’s Hinata…?”_

Tanaka frowns quickly.

“I thought he said you gave him permission...?”

Kageyama stiffens, repeating the words that stood out to him the most. _“Permission?_ Permission to fucking _what?”_

Nishinoya stands up; “Hinata and Natsu both left before there was a drop of blue in the sky; like forty minutes ago- started heading straight forward out of the gates. They said you told them that they could go?”

Kageyama feels his panic rising like bile in his throat; _“they’re gone??!!”_

Every single one of the guys tense up with him, they can tell he’s serious and are immediately aware that Hinata had lied to them. Kageyama’s fists clench along with the muscles in his face. _“That motherfucker...”_

The raven haired man scoffs; _“they went after fucking Kenma.”_

Kageyama shoves the rest of the guys away, _“let me out._ I don’t know when I’ll be back. Hell, if they’re headed north, we might not come back at all.” Kageyama rips open the gate, so hard that it flies all the way to its end without breaking speed and makes a dull ringing sound beneath the wood, and Kageyama immediately kicks off into a dead sprint.

At the top of his lungs, not even caring for the lurkers, Kageyama screams; _“Hinataaa!!!”_

His voice wouldn’t carry far enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to clarify, yes, that was bokuaka that they encountered. if you havent read the tags youll be seeing a LOT more of them in the future.
> 
> going to try and halve the next liminal chapter as well as i like the uploading schedule way more but i don’t really remember what the beta is like so it might be longer than most !2&4!45?? i have no idea but once again thank you guys for sitting through the fattest bitch of a fic of all time, i really appreciate it :) ❤️


	5. remnants of skytree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the northern infestation turns out to be a little less overrun than once thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW FOR THIS CHAPTER: there is a flashback scene toward the beginning of the chap that revolves heavily around the topic of depression, and although it’s not particularly graphic (besides emetophobia !!) it’s still something that needs discretion as it gets pretty in-depth with the psychological stuff. stay safe fellas ❤️**
> 
> sorry this chapter took AGES to get out just for it to be not even all that exciting and dialogue based, rewriting some of the chapters has been extremely difficult but next chapter shouldnt be as bad so i'll actually be making the effort of trying to pump the next one out asap
> 
> i also finally figured out how to transport my writing over to ao3 and actually have the rich text work properly and not fucking condense everything, so maybe i finally won’t have to go through my chapters making sure everything is italicized correctly lmaoo

“Hinata, that’s…”

_“... Super dangerous.”_

“When else are we going to get this chance, Yachi-san?”

Looking up to massive walls of plaster and cement, Hinata tugs at the straps of his pack- no windows, no vantage points…

 _“That’s too high for us to jump onto,”_ the girl next to him comments in exasperation, and Hinata nods in the realization that they would have to backtrack. _‘Damn it.’_

The Hinatas had left under the cover of darkness, before the moon had retreated and allowed the sun to reclaim its place in the sky… now, settled lowly above the flats of rooftops, the late morning light threatened to blind Hinata as he squinted to reduce the dramatic glare bouncing off the sides of structures. He guesses it’s been about an hour since their departure, maybe more- but what he knows for sure is that with all this movement, his condition was only bound to get worse throughout the day. Second damn day in a row he’d decided to do this, unprimed and unconditioned, making frequent stops and sucking down water... Hinata understood that a fever was likely to come in its wake what with his every muscle being exploited and beaten-

Which is why he knew he couldn’t stop, not for long; _he’d give out if he did._ Being out here was unwise and Hinata knew that- probably the dumbest thing he could’ve done given his circumstances, but he’d already waited a month and like hell was he waiting any longer.

“Let’s go back a block or two.”

“Yeah.”

Rolling out his shoulders, Hinata lists out what he has for his own sense of security: bags of meat, water, food, painkillers, a medkit that Yachi had smuggled for them- along with a stubby metal pipe he’d picked up as a weapon. And Kageyama’s singular knife. He knows there wasn’t enough food to last the pair for long, but stockpiling too much was a risk neither of them could take- too suspicious. So, Hinata just told Asahi that the two were going for a run, one that Kageyama had permitted, and settled with what he’d been handed beneath that declaration.

They must be hundreds of feet in the air and yet the redhead could count biters below him. They all looked real similar: pale and fleshy and aimlessly wandering the streets. Sometimes, Hinata would see them sitting against walls or laying on the ground, throwing up, doing things _too human_ for Hinata not to be disturbed by it; so far from human and yet so close… they still bled and their hearts still pumped.

But no. _They weren’t the same,_ Hinata wouldn’t get that twisted.

Admittedly, there were far more biters inhabiting the area than what the base had grown comfortable with, but… _had this really been what Kageyama was so afraid of...?_ This patchy, scattered collection of them… surely this couldn’t be what Kageyama gets so worked up over, worked up enough to throw him onto the ground the first day they’d met, worked up enough to refrain from saving someone when it was your job… anything that scared Kageyama fucking _horrified_ Hinata because that man seemed fearless, invincible to Hinata.

What the hell was Kageyama Tobio scared of??

The answer was _not_ twelve or so biters.

And so, Hinata makes sure that he’s smart about the way he does things- thinks about where he’s headed, where he’s come from, what seemed dumb and what didn’t, using visual landmarks and overcalculating every leap and bound. He couldn’t afford to fall to his death, couldn’t afford to die right this moment.

Grabbing at his braids with Natsu at his side, he thinks about where his home is, about why Yachi had put them in in the first place. But that message in itself conflicts Hinata.

Was his home really back at the base, or was his home with Kenma and Natsu…?

He supposed this mission answered for him. “Shou…?”

Exhaling deeply, the tight grasp in his hair leaves. “Coming.”

  
  
  


_“Fuck’s sake…”_

_Here we go again._

_Tonight was another one of those nights that found themselves becoming quite the terrifying norm for Hinata; nights where the guy would get wasted off his ass at hours too late to be counted, two bottles of sake and counting a third lying drained near his legs. He’s not wasted in the fun way, either._

_This was the kind of drunk where Hinata had let his feelings swell just hours beforehand, his mother and sister being out of town and leaving him with no physical contact. His only way of solving this problem was to get buzzed out of his fucking mind- to let the pain numb down, to replace the empty void in his skull with flames and leave the silence of his veins tingling with alcohol. Hinata was now suffering the consequences, overflowing on the floor of the bathroom with a numb face and heavy limbs; he can’t swallow to save his life. Tears fall more profusely than the hot vomit that singed his mouth and throat, god, it fucking burned. ‘God, it fucking burns.’_

_He lurches again and violently heaves into the water, as if there was much left to throw up, saliva stained with the reek of sake oozing from his lip- it reeks in here, reeks of a man who had the worst damn coping mechanism on the planet._ “Fuck this,” _Hinata comments weakly. He’s not sure who he’s talking to, but he makes sure they can hear it’s as he repeats it, “fuck this. Fuck it.”_

_Hinata coughs which results in a gag that clears up his chords just a little bit more._

_Fine one minute, upset the next- once Hinata was upset, like hell was he about to stop. It didn’t seem to have an ending point, just highs and lows and everything in between; didn’t matter if he’d felt good twenty minutes ago, if he exercised and ate well, Hinata was_ sick. _So fucking sick. And a part of the guy’s mind would guilt him for this, believing that there was no reason he should be this emotional_ _while there were people who had it so much worse- he felt selfish. But, of course, that’s not what the other half felt. He yearns for things so badly yet never reaches out for them, never changes or asks someone to help him change. Partially because it makes him feel burdensome, but mostly?_ Because he throws himself a damn pity party. _Ignores the path that would lead him to a happier, healthier life and chooses to pick out things that couldn’t be helped instead. Hinata knows this, but it’s become his own twisted way of dealing with things; he gets sad and he lets himself do anything he wants,_ anything. _Get drunk? Just for tonight. A fling with someone he wanted to cut off? Only if he’s sure he’ll block them tomorrow. That item that’s been sitting on his wishlist for months now because he couldn’t afford it? Seems like a perfect time to buy it._

 _Hinata didn’t have the time he used to have and it was evident in the way that his veins pierced through the whites of his eyes, in the way that his skin was sickly and pale and in the way that the only thing that sounded satisfactory to Hinata was some sort of damage,_ some sort of pain. _Hinata wanted to break himself down_ even more, _so that maybe this relentless melancholy would ease up on him just a little bit. Wasn’t quite sure what that meant in his current state; whether he wanted to destroy or to be destroyed, Hinata didn’t know._

He just knew it hurt.

But all in the same, even through his foggy, depressed and drunk head, Hinata knew that _of all things none of this was the right answer. He knew he still had a mother and a little sister to look after, that he’d have friends wanting him back..._

_Hinata wouldn’t let himself die now, not while Hinata had people depending on him._

_Not while he still held his promise._

_Hinata could long and threaten to himself that, one day, high on hysteria, he really_ would _take his own life- but he knew he’d never do it. He really was too much of a pussy. Somewhere deep, Hinata understood right now was a big, intoxicated misunderstanding. Just barely sober enough to have a scrap of his morals left._

 _But oh how Hinata_ hated _being alone._

_Pent up aggression was only being stirred further by the alcohol in his blood. Fuck, he needed more sake; he was going to drink until he knocked himself the fuck out. Anything to just get rid of this awful feeling without hurting himself or someone._

Anything.

“Shouyou??”

 _Hearing a voice come from his living room, a door slamming shut in its wake, Hinata tenses up completely as he realizes who it is. Fuck. Oh fuck, shit._ No _. The tears that had been welled up in his eyes for a good few seconds come pouring back down again as he hears footsteps, and Hinata doesn’t try to do anything. Hinata doesn’t shut the door, he doesn’t wipe his face,_ nothing _. He just waits in a guilty silence for Kenma to find him._

_The living room is dark; “Shouyou, I heard your mom and Natsu-chan were out for the night, so I came to check up on…”_

_Kenma freezes in the center of Hinata’s blurring view, peering in on him from a distance away in the darkness. The blonde man’s eyes widen, progressing in a way that Hinata can only think to describe as shock, realization, horror... Kenma’s breathing becomes audible from where he stands, trembling just a little. The light in the man’s eyes is reflected only by the solid one coming from the bathroom;_ “Shouyou… _”_

‘Heeeyyyyyy.’

_Kenma is surprised, but not as surprised as one should be finding their sobbing friend lying on the bathroom floor with empty bottles of liquor scattered around them. Hinata knows Kenma’s used to it. It isn’t the first time Hinata had pulled something like this, and he can guarantee it wouldn’t be the last. But a lot of times, Hinata’s even more drunk, even more emotionally unstable. Hinata wasn’t going to do anything this time, nothing to himself and nothing to others. Just get drunk and wake up with a hangover, that’s all he planned to do._

_But now Kenma was here, giving Hinata an early reminder of just how bad his concept of coping really was._

_Kenma darts towards him and collapses onto the ground, grabbing at a towel and vigorously wiping the spit off his face as Hinata bawled, “oh, god damn it, Shouyou- why didn’t you_ call me??”

 _Hinata wants to answer, but his brain is completely fried- a wasted, emotional mess at this point and Kenma’s aware of that. Hinata lets himself melt beneath Kenma’s touch, whimpering loudly as Kenma wiped at his eyes with a thumb- being treated like a fucking_ baby _. It pissed Hinata off that he couldn’t respond, but shit- Hinata couldn’t even see straight. Kenma repeats his words, “Shouyou, oh my god...”_

_Not like this was the worst state he’s seen Hinata in, though._

_“I-I’m… so-sorry,” Hinata hiccups between sobs, too much damn sake._

_“Don’t apologize; you’re okay, Shouyou.”_

_As the blonde wraps his arms around him, Hinata finds Kenma’s skin cool and inviting against his flaming headache, his jacket still kissed with the night’s fresh air- Kenma doesn't seem to care for the bits of toxic saliva that soaked the guy’s shirt. The ginger can hear Kenma beginning to pout softly as his head buried into Hinata’s cheek. “Hey, you’re okay. I love you.”_

_“Sor-ry... Kenma, sorry…”_

_Hinata goes limp a little as Kenma strokes the back of his head, his fingers kneading into his scalp relaxingly, hushing him like an infant. Cooing him into a softer state of mind like he was a fucking toddler having a fucking temper tantrum._ “I love you, Shouyou.”

_Hinata thinks that he’s the most immature person in the world._

_Kenma’s voice breaks hard, and the breath he takes shakes in the same way Hinata’s body does. “I love you.”_

_“L.. love…”_

_Hinata gags again and Kenma pulls away in fear of being thrown up on, grabbing at Hinata’s tear-chapped cheeks. “I know, buddy, I know. I’m here now. You’re okay.”_

_He sees Kenma’s lip quiver but doesn’t realize how close he is to crying until his mouth opens and his voice comes through a tight, squeaky whisper. The guy grabs at his hand like it’s the last piece of him he has left;_ “I know, bud.” _Kenma was trying so hard to be strong. It was okay, really; he could cry too…_

“ _I love you, Shouyou.”_

_To Hinata, Kenma’s words were far more intoxicating than that damn sake._

  
  
  
‘ _Just how far did those two get...?’_

There were _two_ _ways_ to describe Hinata that Kageyama found never failed him. 

_On one hand, Hinata was sly as all hell. On the other, he was the dumbest motherfucker Kageyama had ever met in his lifetime._

The raven-haired man flings himself from roof to roof, going as fast as he could possibly go even though his lungs told him to stop. He desperately tries to recall what Hinata had told him about the residence of Kenma; what, nearby the bombing of Skytree, right? Hell, _no wonder_ there were so fucking many of them up north; it was tourist attraction hell up there.

But how in god’s name was he going to figure out which singular household was being occupied by Hinata in _all of Tokyo...?_

Kageyama’s no foreigner to tracking, but by god if he had any lead or ideas or anything of the sort other than _head north_ and guessing which buildings were easier to run along the tops of, not to mention he was at least an _hour_ behind the two escapees. The only thing he knew was that he was throwing himself into the heart of a lurker moshpit, looking for one _stupidly rebellious guy and his younger, slightly less rebellious but equally stubborn sister._ A guy that was going to get his _ass beat_ once Kageyama found him. Hinata needed a damn shock collar on.

Kageyama knows that he _should_ just go back home and stop risking the entire hotel for one dumb ass guy, and if Hinata died, Hinata died. Damn it all; maybe it was the pain of not ever knowing what happened to Hinata once he disappeared was what drove Kageyama nuts. Maybe it was the frustration that Hinata wouldn't listen to him, or maybe he thought he could snag the two before they got in too deep into the north...

Maybe he didn’t mind Hinata so much anymore.

Didn’t mean the guy wouldn't get his sorry ass kicked, though, and didn’t make Kageyama any less frustrated with him either... but maybe, after saving his life once or twice, Kageyama felt some strange _connection_ with Hinata. Not entirely a friend, but…

Maybe like they understood one another.

 _Maybe._ Because right now, every person at the base ordered him around and thought he was selfish for the things he did; Hinata didn’t. Hinata _understood._ Hinata seemed to care about what he did even if Kageyama didn’t give a damn about what happened to him.

But then again, Kageyama couldn’t say he didn’t give a damn because _here he was,_ putting Hinata before the needs of the entire base. As if he hadn’t had suspicions before, Hinata had proved himself to be untrustworthy. Proved himself by the way that he used Kageyama as his escape ticket and lied to their sentries, all so he could find Kenma, but… _that seemed to be all that Hinata really wanted._ Hinata wanted _out._ And maybe, Kageyama thinks, if he gave the idiot what he wanted… maybe Kageyama would have someone that he could count on. If that made sense. Or maybe he was just getting too deep into things, he just wanted some damn help and a person with common sense around here.

Reflecting, Kageyama exhales; he was gonna find Hinata today no matter _what_ it took.

He skids to a halt when there are no more buildings left to jump. Kageyama looks around, his chest heaving, throat craving moisture and forcing him to swallow every few breaths to keep his throat from becoming raw and dry. Surely they wouldn’t have sprinted this place considering Hinata’s condition, right? _‘Then again, these are the Hinatas we’re talking about.’_ They had to be at least drawing _close._ Kageyama scans the ground; there was only one way to get across to continue going north and that was the ground, so if Hinata would’ve gone this way, there should be…

Kageyama’s eyes meet exactly what he was hoping for just a couple of blocks down and he feels a grin spread over his face that matches the intensity of his eyes. 

‘ _Dead lurkers.’ Fresh, dead lurkers with their heads knocked in from the side,_ the same scene he’d witnessed when he’d rescued the guy from the hotel horde. Totally a Hinata style move, both brother and sister.

They _had_ been here; Kageyama was on the right trail. The man dampens his lips, his breaths coming out in a wheeze as wind brushes his bangs out to the side. “I knew it.”

Kageyama makes his way to the ground and immediately darts towards the scattered bodies. Those head wounds; yeah, those were _definitely_ Hinata-inflicted. The raven-haired man pulls to a stop to examine one of them, finding a bloody footprint on the ground that Kageyama’s own almost engulfed in size before noticing a quick, four-burst set of prints along the wall and laughs to himself.

He’s on the right track, alright.

  
  
  
  


“Whelp, we tried. Time to go back.”

More irritated than shocked, Hinata stares at the ground below him, eyeballing the biggest goddamn horde he’s ever seen. “Hold it right there, we are _not_ going back again.”

He’s pretty sure he’s found what Kageyama’s afraid of.

Biters swamped the streets so heavily that setting foot on the ground wasn’t even an option. And, to make things all the scarier, they were all headed in one direction, it seemed- like one really tame, horrid-smelling tidal wave, yet there wasn’t a way around them. All that was left for them was to stay, or turn back.

Hinata wanted to scream his lungs out and throw a fit right then and there; their whole two hour journey was about to be a waste of their time. And no way in hell would that motherfucker Kageyama ever let him out again if Hinata didn’t end up retrieving Kenma in the first place, didn’t end up proving his worth somehow. He wondered where the raven-haired man was now, if the guy had woken up yet or if he’d even figured out he was gone... yeah, no, Kageyama was definitely up and _definitely_ knew they were gone by now. He could only hope that Kageyama’s temper would be his saving grace just this once, and that the guy would be too irritated to give chase.

Hinata sighs, throwing his bag down and sitting on the edge of the building. “You think we can wait it out?”

He gets a whack on the side of the head for this. _“Hell no,”_ replies Natsu, and Hinata waves her off. “Aww, c’monnn- this is the first time you’ve been alone with your adorned big brother in two months, don’t you have something you’re just _dying_ to talk about...?”

 _“Nope,”_ she replies, digging into the bag and ripping trail mix out of it as she sits next to him. A couple of biters have noticed their presence by now, though it wasn’t enough of them to attract attention from the entire horde. Slowly but surely, the biters lumber their way through the thick crowd and towards the siblings and Hinata, crestfallen and having nothing better to do, watches them with a hand under the chin, pouting. “How can you be away from me so much and still have nothing to talk about...?”

“I just don’t like you.”

 _“Ouch._ No cute, sixteen year old boys at base, huh?”

“What, you wanna talk about minors, gay boy?”

Hinata rubs at his face, muttering _“Jesus fucking Christ not even Yacchan could save you”_ before popping a handful into his mouth.

“You know, maybe if you’d stop yearning for the emotionally closed off, emo-lookin’ boys, you’d actually get some game.”

 _“Piss off,”_ Hinata replies, “I don’t like him.”

Natsu blinks. “I… _wasn’t singling out Kageyama,_ but- further proving my point by the way your first instinct is to deny your feelings for him.”

Hinata goes red, fingers curling at their sides in frustration. _“Yes you fucking-_ look, I don’t know why _you_ of all people think I’d be lying about liking Kageyama when it’s blatantly obvious that my first reaction when it comes to liking someone is to tell every living soul I know about it.”

“You mean Kenma and I?”

“Essentially, yeah.”

Natsu clicks her tongue. “Y’know, I’m not sure Kenma would be particularly fond of this love interest.”

“Don’t know how many times I have to say it, but he’s _not_ a love interest- and when he is, you’ll hear me crying about it.”

The biters claw at the wall that hangs beneath their swinging feet, tiny streaks of mucus and gore left as residue on the brick as they move their jaws up and down, ready to start chowing down the moment that the redhead dropped. It didn’t make Hinata uncomfortable anymore, just sympathetic. It really made the man wonder what he ever did to still be alive.

Hinata, of all these millions of people, was alive. Bullshit. Hinata wasn’t some expert survivalist, wasn’t anything special- hell, he wasn’t even familiar with the ground he tread on. _You can be replaced,_ as Kageyama had told him; and that statement was an undeniable truth. What had _Hinata_ done to deserve to live? To reside in the building he holed up in? To escape death by a miracle, by Kageyama’s quick hands and Sugawara’s medical field, to survive well into two months of this sort of hell and be well fed and growing stronger with each passing day? Why did _he_ of all people deserve that? Why was _he_ favored by the fate of luck more than any of those others down there??

Hinata pulls out a bag of trail mix as he watches them. Fuck, he almost feels like _feeding_ them, like they’re some group of fat city pigeons.

“Hey, anyone down there a Lady Gaga fan??”

“Please don’t-“

_“I want your loviiiinnnnnn’, I want your revenge-“_

“Dear god.”

Hinata can hear himself slurring the English pronunciations to the point where it was offensive, but it wasn’t as if the biters were here to play American Idol with them, and he giggles as a few more join the crowd.

The ginger wonders if Kenma would like this out here; _rooftop running.._. probably not; if Kenma didn’t have to do it, more than likely he wouldn’t be the type that was willing to. Not that Hinata blamed him, really- only crazy bastards like himself enjoyed this rigorous work- not even Natsu seemed like she wanted this to be her everyday job like Hinata did. The redhead’s eyelids sink as he reminisces Kenma and he sighs, stretching a little as he finds the sun; it still wasn’t all that high yet, a very faint tint of orange still able to be seen surrounding the outlines of the clouds. It was... almost _serene_ , y’know. you subtracted the never-ending groans of the biters and their deathly odor.

“You know, I don’t think these biters are going to clear, Shou- and you screaming at them isn’t really helping.”

“Yeah, yeah- you’re right. Let’s try and get into one of these buildings or something.” Hinata rises back up to his feet, literally saying goodbye to his biter friends beneath him. “Someday I’ll be able to sing for you guys on top of your dead bodies, but… until then, _goodbye_.”

Swinging his bag back onto his back, he trots over to another side of the building, looking for an entry. Ah, a balcony. How perfect.

The redhead falls and lands in a squat and Natsu falls right after him, Hinata letting out a tremendous sigh when the world doesn’t come falling from beneath their feet. The doors to this balcony had been glass once, but- it seemed like a shockwave or something unnatural had shattered them, because the way they had broken was _very, very clean._ Awful flashbacks present themselves in the guy’s mind as he hears the glass crunch beneath his feet, reminding him of the cafe he’d carried Kenma out of and when he’d fallen out the window... God, by the time he got out of this damn apocalypse, he was going to get triggers by just looking at one of those damn mirror houses at the fairgrounds. Hinata takes the metal pipe from out of his bag, making sure Kageyama’s knife was still loose in his pocket before cautiously taking his first steps into the upstairs living room.

The immediate relief he gets on his ears away from the biters’ groans was astounding, and quickly under this silence does Hinata get déja vù- how surreal it felt to see houses intact to some degree. It wasn’t crawling with biters, either- no promises for the downstairs, though, god knew what had up and died down there.

“I think we’re clear.”

Scavenging through the rooms, Hinata checks out the bathroom longer than anything else, foraging for over the counter meds out of the cabinets before staring at his own face for a good while in the mirror. _And damn_. Handing Yachi the credit, he really did look good as hell with those braids in. Poking just a few short inches out from behind his ears, they were short and tight enough to hit out at a different angle than the rest of his locks and Hinata thought it was so _fucking cool,_ managing to stand out really well even against the natural wildness of his hair, as well as the lack of hygiene that came with the apocalypse.

He hoped Yachi wasn’t so worried about him with Natsu here. Or vice versa.

“All good, Natsu?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’m gonna check downstairs and make sure nothing else is in here with us- at least not in the main rooms.”

“Don’t die.”

Creeping up to the steps, Hinata draws his pole with the grip on the metal tightening finger by finger, ready to kick ass if needed and trying his damndest to stay silent. Stealth was an ability that Hinata probably wouldn’t possess if he were much bigger, but, given his size and weight, it gave him a distinct advantage in the field. Just about the only thing that Hinata had in this world besides his speed, the redhead couldn’t rely on brute force as someone like Kageyama or Tanaka could; it forced him to utilize these concealed skills that he once had no idea he possessed.

Hinata hits the bottom of the steps in a tensed figure, his arms whipped out to the side and ready to bludgeon someone if he had to, but there was nothing yet. This was a kitchen; again, really well organized and furnished... almost like someone had…

_Been here recently…?_

Hinata suddenly hears clanging from one of the rooms next to him, not loud but sudden.

Was someone else _here…?_ Someone alive?? _‘No more survivors my ass,’_ so far, both the times Hinata’s been outside he’s met up with someone or another. Let’s hope these people aren’t as hostile.

The ginger treads down the hallway as lightly as possible, focus directed onto the open door at the end of the hallway. His fingers tremble a little, he hadn’t ever had the upperhand dealing with a _living person_ before. Couldn’t even be sure that’s what that noise was, it damn well could’ve meant anything. ‘ _Kageyama invites people in all the time, right? He hasn’t gotten murdered yet… maybe I should call Natsu?’_

Hinata peeks around a corner.

A man stands there with his back turned to him, around the same height as Kageyama but scrawnier, very clearly working on something. It looked as if his fingers never stopped moving, _a busy guy._ His hair was dark, brown- greenish, almost, and he had this little tuft of hair towards the middle that stuck out out of nowhere; kind of reminded him of Sugawara.

“Nothing I try ever try ever _fucking_ works...”

Hinata blinks cautiously as the man looks around for something, grabs at it, then begins fiddling with whatever’s in his clutches. Hinata can’t even see the man’s face but he knows he’s exhausted as hell just by the way his movements jittered and by the way he talked to himself. Seemed like the kind of guy who ran on three hours of sleep, which led Hinata to his first question...

What the _fuck_ was this guy working on?

“Wrench-“ he hears the guy mutter, “wrench, wrench, need _wrench-“_

Hinata isn’t prepared for how quickly this guy spins on his restless heels.

For a split moment, the man doesn’t notice Hinata standing in the doorway. But then, baggy, bloodshot eyes lock onto his and widen, mouth falling open just enough to part his lips and make his gasp audible. Hinata can see the rise and fall of his chest growing more noticeable and the redhead drops his pipe, raising his hands up next to him.

“ _Hi...?”_

Empty handed, the man lunges at him.

Hands clasped around his throat, Hinata feels his wail of terror get trapped in his lungs and manifest into desperation as his body gets slammed against the wall; this guy is much bigger than he is. Writhing, the ginger pulls the same technique he had with Kageyama, burying his hands between the guy’s arms and pushing in at his eyes; upon contact, his attacker howls in pain and the pressure on Hinata’s throat is released as his attacker hunches over, hands clutching at his eyes…

And just like that, it’s over. Hinata draws the knife and points it at the guy, making sure that it’s the first image that Hinata gives him, making sure the guy knew his place beneath Hinata’s blade.

The mystery man looks up at him with terrified eyes and Hinata relaxes his hand a little bit. “Hey, man, chill- _I don’t want to hurt you,_ ” he coaxes, but by the look on the guy’s face and by the way his voice squeaked, he doesn’t seem too convinced. “ _D-drop your weapon-“_

Hinata curiously raises his chin a little; he didn’t trust that suggestion at _all_ , but- he needed this guy to trust _him, right?_ Besides, he wasn’t alone here. Hinata exhales, and tosses the knife down the hallway, out of his own reach but much further out of the other guy’s, where if the two of them were in a rush, Hinata could get to it first. The man, however, doesn’t attack him again. Instead, he gradually rises back to his full height, examining the redhead like he was some mythical creature while Hinata leans casually against the wall, staring at his nails; awfully dirty, they were. “Who- _who are you?_ What’s your name???”

“Hinata,” the redhead answers simply, never taking his eyes off his nails. “Who are you?”

“I.. _I don’t need to tell you that._ ”

Hinata raises his eyebrows, thoroughly unimpressed. “Oh, _come on._ What’s telling me your name going to hurt in the damn apocalypse...?”

“A lot of things, actually!” He points an accusing finger, “what if- if I have a bounty, and you’re here to kill me?? Or... o-or... what if I...” with a gulp, the man takes another step back. “I’m… Yama- guchi. Tadashi Yamaguchi.”

Hinata can literally _feel_ the anxiety this guy was emitting. Yamaguchi doesn’t look like he had all that much for a build; he was probably naturally scrawny, like Hinata, but at the same time he didn’t seem like he was out and about much. His skin nearly matched the color of the underside of his arms, indicating that he had little for a tan and spent more time _inside_ than running...

Yamaguchi tilts his head back like he’s trying to be brave. “Are- you _alone_??”

Hinata’s voice heightens to make sure he sounded like he was having a normal conversation. “ _Nah- hey Natsu!!”_

The voice that calls is faint. “Yeah??”

“Get down here!”

The girl comes flying downstairs and you’d think that Yamaguchi’s never seen another pair of human beings in his life. Natsu freezes up a little once she realizes, bewildered by the sight of the uninfected man and even more so when Hinata notions for her to drop her weapon. “We _kinda-_ _sorta-_ ran off from our group without their knowledge or consent, so the two of us are about as alone as could be right now. We’re looking for my friend, we got separated in our first few weeks after the bombs- you haven’t seen a guy around my height with bleached blonde hair by chance, have you? Really cool feather tattoo on his arm? _The left arm??”_

Yamaguchi blinks between the two of them, very obviously taken aback by how casually Hinata was talking to him. “ _N-”_

“Hey, what’s that??”

Hinata takes a few steps forward but stops when Yamaguchi gets visibly uncomfortable. “I- don’t go in there. There’s equipment and stuff in there I don’t want you breaking.”

“Oh- oh, okay. Can I just _know_ what you were doing, then??”

Yamaguchi squints at him. “You’re being _awfully friendly._ ”

“Yeah, that’s because I’m _trying to be,_ idiot. I don’t want you to see me as some asshole that’s after all your stuff because we have plenty, I just wanna know more about what the fuck you were doing.”

And, with the limpening of the shoulders, Yamaguchi’s eyebrows raise so far up it wrinkles his forehead in both confusion and disgust. “I was… _working on this radio,_ trying to fix it back up…”

“Fix it?” Hinata flies from his spot- “woah woah woah, are you a _technician? “_

“I- I mean yeah, but- no, that’s the thing; I know what you’re thinking and I don’t specialize in all that frequency crap, but I know for a fact that the things I’m trying that _should_ be working sure aren’t… nothing local, at least.”

And suddenly, another voice breaks through in the room behind Yamaguchi, staticky and garbled and Hinata’s looks past him to try and see what it is. “ _Yamaguchi._ ”

Sure as hell, just as it sounds, it’s a fucking _walkie-talkie._

“ _Yamaguchi, you there??”_

“Hang on,” the man tells Hinata, like he’s expecting him _not_ to follow him in there- yeah _right._ The moment Yamaguchi turns around, Hinata, of course, does anyways, beckoning Natsu with him who was still extremely lost on the situation.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

Hinata stares at Yamaguchi like he’s never seen a radio in his _life_. He can hear the other voice’s heavy breathing through the phone; clearly outside from the catching of wind. It was obviously a guy, and he had this- _nice_ voice, kind of hard to describe; like kind of deepish and a tiny bit nasally- he sounded kind of evil, if Hinata was being honest. He also sounded really calm for being out wherever he was. “ _I’m headed back, didn’t find much. Be there in about five, dinner’s going to have to be cut short again._ ”

“That’s okay, Tsukki. Also, uh, we have a- er… _some guests...“_

Confusion spreads. “ _.... guests?_ ”

“Yeah; they’re not the same ones as last time but I don’t even know how they got in, they’re not even covered in guts or anything. Hell, I never even heard the door open...”

‘ _Could you even get through that door without being mowed down?’_

“ _And they’re friendly?_ ”

Yamaguchi turns to glare at Hinata, who beams at him. “Friendly is an understatement.”

He hears the man- _Tsukki?_ sigh. “ _Alright, well- whatever. Be there in four now.”_

“Okay, stay safe.”

Hinata wonders if this _Tsukki_ character was like- _Yamaguchi’s runner._ Did Yamaguchi kind of hold an authority over the other guy, like Kageyama did with him or something? For whatever reason, it didn’t seem likely to Hinata- the two seemed like they were nice to each other and got along really well, like a sort of _mutual partnership,_ unlike the redhead and _his_ bastard of a potential partner.

“Listen- I’m not the best at being assertive, but you guys need to get out of here. Tsukki… he isn’t one for company, and unfortunately you’re not the first we’ve come across.”

 _‘All the way up here, in lurker hell?’_ The static gets shut off with a click as Tsukki supposedly shuts off his radio and Hinata stares; “you’re out of food…?”

Yamaguchi looks hesitant to answer. “Low on it.”

“ _Ooh_ , here.”

Natsu seems stunned as Hinata pulls out a can and hands it to Yamaguchi, “I _was_ planning on using it for something else, buuut that’s okay.”

 _“We don’t have a lot of that,”_ Natsu reminds quietly, and Hinata gives her a look, one he’s sure she knew signified: _you’ll see._

The man stares back from the can to Hinata, squinting: “damn it, you’re not trying to trade with us, are you? Because we don’t have a lot we’d be willing to give up…”

“It’s one or two cans of meat; no problem for us, dude.”

Yamaguchi looks suddenly very interested. “ _Us??_ ”

“Yeah, you know. I’ve got a group like- down south, with like everything you could possibly need. And I’m _totally_ their kickass leader, by the way; it’s way more tame on the biter department down there than it is there. You should come live with us, we’d welcome you.”

Yamaguchi stares. “ _I did not believe a single word that just came out of your mouth._ ”

“Oh, _come on, Yamaguchi_ ; _look at me._ Look how well fed I am and how sleek I look.” 

“... You’re head to toe in bandages.”

“Fine then, look at Natsu. Not too hard though, now, she’s sixteen-“

Hinata narrowly avoids getting hit again. “I myself have been kind of- _out of commission_ for a little while because of these bad boys-” the redhead points to his ribs and then the bandages all over his forearm, “-so I’ve been letting my- _my Kageyama-“_

Natsu intervenes the second it comes from his mouth. “Your Kageyama.”

“-my partner take over for a little while. He’s a real badass, that guy, all fitness trainer and shit- or was it yoga?”

“Haha, _downward doggy.”_

_“Natsu would you shut the fuck up???”_

Yamaguchi looks between them like they’d gone completely crazy- well, crazi _er_ , because the man never really seemed to warm up to the two in the first place.

“ _So_ , _those_ _things_.” Hinata makes a gesture at the radios. “How many of those do you have...?”

“I thought you said you weren’t trading-”

“I’m not, I’m just suspiciously curious about them.”

 _“Uh_ … I mean, we have more. There are six of them in total and we’ve connected them all to the same frequency as one another. Tsukki and I haven’t ever had a single problem with range on these puppies, either. I’m pretty sure they’d sell for like, a hundred and fifty online; they’re pretty good quality.”

Oh god, Hinata absolutely _had_ to loop these two guys back to his base now. The redhead gives him a rather suggestive stare, preparing his voice to do what he did best; “you know, I know I said I wasn’t trading, but- we could use a pair like yourselves back at our base. It’s a much simpler life back at the hotel; no more sparingly rationing food, no more constant looming threat of biters. And with your technical knowledge, it’s like- a win-win for both of us.”

Yamaguchi’s eyebrows fall as he looks at the ground. “I mean... hell, it’s not just my say in what we do and don’t do, and I don’t know if Tsukki would want to move all his… well, his _equipment_ either.”

“What? Is he a technician, too...?”

“Er, well, _no_ -“

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the door swings wide fucking open. Hinata jumps, panicking, ready for an invasion of a million and a half biters, but-

A man walks in; a fucking _huge,_ beanpole of a man, to be exact- not just covered in blood but smothered with guts and gore so heavily it would’ve made Hinata _vomit_ if he wasn’t used to it. He recognizes immediately that this must be Tsukki from the way that Yamaguchi hardly even jumps-

“Holy _fuck_ , how did you get _in_ here??”

Tsukki slams the doors shut before the biters could hear Hinata’s voice, Yamaguchi immediately slapping a hand over the ginger’s mouth, thinking the same. Yamaguchi’s desperate voice comes out in a shriek of a whisper: “ _are you fucking stupid??!”_

Hinata tears Yamaguchi’s hand off his mouth, knowing that he could be bit louder now that the door was shut but still only as loud as he dared, “ _you’re Tsukki, right??_ ”

The lanky blonde man turns from the door to glare at him. “Duh. And don’t call me that. It’s _Tsukishima_.”

“ _Tsukishima_ , then-” corrects Hinata, turning to Yamaguchi, “how the _hell_ did he get through all those biters...?”

The blonde man sighs, clearly disappointed by their “ _guest”_ and looks back to Yamaguchi; “is he _actually_ this stupid??”

“ _No-_ ”

“ _Yes_ ,” Yamaguchi and Natsu both finish, and Hinata looks between the two of them, feeling singled out. Tsukishima sighs yet again, and for some reason, Hinata gets the feeling that this guy sighs _a_ _lot_. Tsukishima moves in a way that feels _conservational_ to the redhead; “ _their senses are based predominantly off of hearing and smell; you smell like them, you are one of them_.” Speaking like he’s some bored high school teacher who’s just getting started with his last class for the day, his monotone quality never leaves; “how have you even managed to survive this long? It’s you loudmouth idiots who usually die first.”

But the ginger pays no attention to this taunt, staring at the ground as a whole new world is opened up to him. “ _You look smell like them, you are one of them…_ ” He notes how much gore he was covered in- scent _masking. ‘Of course.’_

“You- you guys cover yourselves in guts? And, like- they don’t recognize that you’re human, do they- that’s how you get around??”

Again, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi exchange glances with one another, like this was common sense. “Yeah,” Yamaguchi responds, “how else would you even get around with this many of them??”

Hinata points to the ceiling, making a clicking noise with his tongue, ready for the feeling of pride that came with his short answer; “ _oh, we_ use _rooftops_.”

Next to him, Yamaguchi seems enthralled, momentarily satisfying Hinata’s arrogance. However, the other man looks nothing of impressed- in fact, he was staring at him like he was a fucking _moron._ “Sounds like an easy fall to your death, if you ask me.”

Hinata isn’t fond of this guy.

“ _Guys??_ ” Natsu interrupts, pushing back at Hinata’s chest like he thought that the redhead needed a reminder to not take off after Tsukishima. “Can we please just- _not fight?_ That’s the _last_ thing we need to do when we’re surrounded by this many of _them.”_

The blonde just continues to glower and glare at him from the doorway and dear fucking _lord_ , it’s been like a _half a minute_ and Hinata has already decided that this guy was going to be a stick up his ass. He’s not like Kageyama, assholish for a reason- this guy seemed like a straight up _dick._

Tsukishima clicks his tongue. “You two. What’re your names??”

“Hinata, Natsu,” the redhead responds quickly, but the dude’s eyes are squinted.

“Do you have a group??”

Yes, okay- _this_ was his chance. “ _Yes_ , actually- just a mile or two south of here-“

 _“Then leave._ We don’t want anything to do with you or your trading, if that’s the case.”

‘ _Wait_ -‘

Hinata chokes over his own tongue, Natsu smirking next to him as Tsukishima stalks off, probably to get new clothes. Behind him, the ginger hears the hissing sound created by Yamaguchi’s teeth as he inhales with a wince on his face. “I was afraid of that.”

Yamaguchi stares at the ground, Hinata losing hope as he had expected something positive from the man; “Tsukishima’s been kind of… _stressed out_ as of lately… not to mention there’s been a lot more people around this area than usual; you’re the first to actually find us, but he’s been so dense lately because of it...”

Hinata frowns. “Are there genuine bases up here??”

”Doubt it. The most that Tsukishima and I have seen are groups of two or four- most we’ve seen is six. Not usually the friendliest people.”

Hinata remembers the strange hostile man’s hands clasped around his throat and scoffs a little as he touches his skin. “I think we’ve met similar people.”

Hinata didn’t know the relation between these two, but by the way Yamaguchi had worded things, he was guessing that the two of them had been friends _long before_ the apocalypse. And Hinata wasn’t sure he even had the intellect to counter Tsukishima’s arguments; this guy seemed _way_ smarter than Kageyama; maybe even smarter than Kenma. It was like if you put Kenma’s ridiculously smart brain and Kageyama’s good-for-nothing pissy attitude together- definitely _not_ something Hinata could root into in just a couple of hours.

“Ever since these scouts started piling in, he doesn’t listen to me like he used to.”

 _“Then I won’t talk.”_ Hinata stands firm. “I’ll _show him._ What do we need to do to get you two to come back to the base with us...?”

Wide-eyed next to him, Natsu stares on in horror.

Yamaguchi scratches the back of his head; “it’s not entirely _you,_ it’s just…”

Tsukishima reappears with new, cleaner clothing, blood still smeared on his body and stained in his hair, but- not quite as thick anymore. He must’ve washed the majority of it off. The redhead notices nearly immediately as he examines him that he’s carrying… a bucket? On that note, had he even come back with a bag or...?

Yamaguchi perks up. “Find anything??”

“Nothing but more samples,” the blonde hisses, and Hinata’s interest peaks.

“ _Samples…?_ ” repeats Natsu. “The fuck?”

Tsukishima gives them an annoyed look that shuts him up. “For fucks sake- _I’m a biologist._ What else would require _samples_ from the infected?? Now get lost, we appreciate your generosity but you’re starting to piss me off.”

The look of shock the siblings exchange reflects one another’s.

Dude, what the _fuck_ were these two doing out here alone?? Holy fucking _shit._ How _lucky_ was Hinata that he managed to haphazardly stumble in a house with the last two key professionalists essential to the base’s survival...?

‘ _Kageyama-kun, you are_ so _welcome.’_

Tsukishima sets the pale down next to the door, a couple of flies swarming its contents, pushing up glasses with smudged, bloody fingerprints on them. He goes immediately for the cabinets, revealing a pitiful few cans and bag or two of nuts; no wonder these two were so wiry. He notices the blonde reach for two but Yamaguchi interrupts him.

 _“Oh-_ Hinata gave me one of his cans, so… we won’t have to cut short on dinner tonight.”

The ginger looks up to see Yamaguchi eyeing him for a fraction of a second before looking back up to the other man. ‘ _He’s on my side in this one already; that’s good. Thanks, Yamaguchi.’_

Hinata nods along with him. “I have more to share, if you’d like. Hell, come home with me, and you won’t ever have to worry about that ever again.”

But Tsukishima doesn’t share the same hospitality as Yamaguchi. “You think you can just drop into our home and start demanding we go with you in the first five minutes?” He grumbles, “why the _fuck_ should we trust you??”

“Because I’ll do what it takes to get you guys to come back with me. I’m a runner, it’s what I do.”

Tsukishima remains unconvinced; “there isn’t anything you can get me that isn’t damn near impossible to get ahold of.”

‘ _So there is something.’_

“ _I’ll do it, whatever it is._ Loot is loot and if it means you guys come with me, then count me in.”

Even Yamaguchi next to him seems to revive in shock and Hinata rubs the straps of his bags. “I have to head further into this storm anyways to find my friend; may as well take detours if they’re for a good cause, right??” In his spot, the blonde’s back arches, his eyes squinting quizzically. Natsu’s eyes gut him from where she stands but besides her grating, she’s silent.

“ _Please_ , Tsukishima,” Hinata begs, “you don’t know what our base would do for you two. We have good people there; _families._ Families whose only real hope are in the hands of someone who can work a broadcast or develop a cure- and we can get you both all of that, whatever you need. We _need_ you guys, the world does.”

That hint of _submission_ behind those golden brown eyes...

Hinata was winning.

“ _Yamaguchi.”_ The blonde’s tone had returned to normal as he gave himself a few moments to cool; it was funny, Hinata thought, because Tsukishima definitely wasn’t calm yet. “Talk with me, please.”

Yamaguchi pauses for a moment, then dips his head, giving the ginger one last side eye. Hinata couldn’t be too sure, but he really thought that the look in his eyes said “ _I’ll try._ ” At least Yamaguchi had his back, he trusted that behind all that stress, that man really was a good guy. A damn shame they had to meet in apocalypse like this. “You two stay the _fuck_ out here,” Tsukishima mutters as he rises to his feet, already walking towards the hallway, “we’ll let you know what we decide.”

 _“Okay.”_ The ginger bows respectfully, a tingle setting off inside his stomach, but- it was a good tingle. Anxious, but good. Hinata wasn’t lying, either, about the things he said he’d do. He’d walk through all of Tokyo and back just to get these two on his side, back at their base; it made him excited thinking about the respect he’d get out of this situation…

_This was perfect._

“Shou, what the _fuck_ are you doing???”

Natsu guns his shoulder with her fist and Hinata blinks, _“what??”_

“Are you fucking _kidding me???_ First, you loop us into an already life-threatening situation with almost no supplies, and now you’re making it worse by doing those assholes’ bidding??! What if they ask us to martyr someone or something??”

 _“Small price to pay if these two can save the world,”_ retorts Hinata. “They’re people just like us, important or not, and if I’m going to be adopting Kageyama’s role I may as well get used to it.”

But for once, Natsu doesn’t argue, her anger quick to fade as she stares off at something beyond him.

_“Uh-“_

And, out of nowhere, Hinata suddenly becomes discomforted by the open space presented to his back. His legs turn to mush, _something’s wrong, something’s wrong-_

_Something’s fucking behind him._

‘ _Fuck!’_

Hinata gasps right before something clasps over his mouth, dragging him back by the throat; he’s so shocked that he doesn’t even find it in him to be able to fight back, helplessly being pulled back to god knows where as his words are muffled by something clasping over his mouth.

Hinata feels whatever’s behind him hit the wall with his torso in his clutches, and at this point in time the ginger is coming to terms with this “ _thing”_ being _human_. Hinata squirms and tries to bite down on what he supposes is a hand, but his flailing is short lived because-

“ _Shhhh._ ”

-Because Hinata could recognize that _fucking voice_ any day. Natsu causally greets the newcomer with a waving of the hand. “Hey.”

‘ _God damn it-‘_

The ginger ignites and rips the hand off of his mouth, scooting forwards as soon as he’s free, body wheeling around to face those dangerous blue eyes. Jumping when he’s greeted by a blade at the bridge of his nose, Hinata flares his nostrils with a whisper: “Are you fucking _insane???_ What the hell was _that??!!”_

Kageyama glares him down. “ _Got anything to say to me, dumbass??_ ”

“ _I fucking hate you,”_ Hinata snarls in a whisper, pushing the knife to the side.

_“You say that a lot.”_

Hinata lashes out with both hands and pushes him back, pissed off, Kageyama grunting in response. The man doesn’t look any more prepared than usual; tanktop, shorts, a normal bag, knives and the revolver peeking out of their respective holsters. Bulging biceps, nice quads- what the _fuck_ was he talking about again? “How the _hell_ did you even find us??”

Kageyama’s fingers pop in a stretch, tossing their bag of trail mix that must’ve been left behind on the roof. _“I had a hunch._ And maybe you two aren’t just as slick as you think you are,” the raven-haired man growls, making sure neither one of them was singled out from his gaze as he rolled out his shoulders like it was something to be proud of. “And where the hell’s my knife? You took it yesterday when I threw it on the ground, didn’t you??”

Hinata rolls his eyes and points to its location down the hall before bouncing toward it. “ _Here-_ here’s your stupid fucking knife.”

The ginger snatches it up and considers lightly throwing it at him just to see the guy jump like a kitten being offered a cucumber, but he doesn’t in fear that he’d regret it later. “Hey, speaking of which; you _defended me_ last night, didn’t you?”

Kageyama follows him “Well, I mean- _yeah_. Ennoshita didn’t know shit; it was uncalled for.”

“ _Or_ could it just be that _yoooou._ ..“ Hinata bends forward in mockery, pointing the knife at him with the flick of a wrist, “- _like me_?”

“Like hell I do.”

“ _Aww, come on-_ not even a little bit? Not even after I saved your butt?? _Twice???”_

Natsu chimes in, of course taking the opposite side of Hinata: “I think the longer you’re around someone, the more they start to _dislike_ _you_.”

“Then why’d he come running, risking his life to hunt me down when it doesn’t even concern him, huh??”

Kageyama pauses. He picks up his tossed weapon.

“ _See_ , you _do_ like me.”

“ _I do fucking no-“_

Hinata jolts as Kageyama’s mouth falls open in a gasp; “ _get down!!_ ”

Of course Hinata, not knowing what was going on, follows Kageyama’s instructions in a whirl of panic, covering his head as Kageyama launches the knife down the hallway hard enough to steal a grunt from him. When Hinata hears the dull thud of a knife hitting plaster and a quick, surprised scream, Hinata suddenly understood what’s happening-

“ _Wait_ \- _Kageyama, no!!_ ”

The redhead leaps in front of the man just steps before he reaches Yamaguchi; nearly getting bowled over in the process as Kageyama, new blade raised high in the air, smacks into him. The collide is enough to parry both of their weights; but Hinata, expecting this crash, regains himself quicker. The ginger throws his arms out, his knees bent, ready to take off if Kageyama decided to move again. “ _Kageyama_ -“

The raven-haired man doesn’t even seem like he’s paying attention even though he was like a whole half a foot away from him; _jesus_ , he had a bad habit of that. Wanting to pick fights and not listening to the voice of reason; how _Kageyama_ was that. “ _Hey, ‘Yama,”_ Hinata stretches up grabs at his wrist gently, _“he’s a friend._ ”

And, in an instant, Kageyama’s eyes meet Hinata’s, and the man’s raised hand slowly drops to his side with Hinata’s clasped around it, his breathing relaxing a little as he rolls his eyes. Hinata, knowing that Yamaguchi was safe now, lets go and turns his head around to the man. “Sorry about that, you just- _scared_ him.”

“ _I_ fucking scared _him??!_ ”

Hinata sees Yamaguchi flattened against the wall, his knees shaking and his arms spread out wide with at least half of the knife embedded into the wall about a foot away from his head. “Who the hell is _him??!!”_

Hinata turns around, stalking to Kageyama’s side- Jesus _Christ,_ he looked fucking _scary_ when he was pissed off; Kageyama had this sort of perfect blend to his physical appearance where he looked only one of two ways no matter what emotion he was conveying; either pretty, or straight up terrifying. Hinata didn’t even blame Yamaguchi for nearly shitting himself. “Yeah, sorry, he has a thing for shit timing- Yamaguchi, _this_ is Kageyama. Kageyama, Yamaguchi.”

Kageyama proceeds to follow up Hinata’s words with an aggressive exhale emitted through his nose, hard enough to rock the bangs hanging down in his face and Hinata doesn’t even flinch. He wonders what Yamaguchi thinks about being protected from this huge, six foot hunk of a man by this scrawny, exercise-deprived little guy.

Yamaguchi, stumbling to his full height, proceeds to flip Kageyama off.

“ _Yeaaah,_ ” Hinata says, patting Kageyama’s chest lightly as he gets an answer, “I don’t like him much either.”

Yamaguchi shakes as Hinata mutters slurred words under his breath and pats Kageyama to keep a constant reminder that he was here, coaxing the man into not slitting Yamaguchi’s throat open; “how did you even get _in here??_ What the hell is _with_ you people??!”

“ _That_ doesn’t concern you,” Kageyama snarls lowly, and Hinata looks up just in time to see Kageyama look down at him, “and _you_ -“

“Woah _woah_ -“ Kageyama tears Hinata off of him by the hair and drags him a couple of steps back. Hinata squeaks, hurt, following his lead with his head tilted backwards in Kageyama’s favor. “Is this how it’s _always_ going to fucking be with you, _Kageyama??!_ Because I’m going to keep getting out here, I’m not just-“ 

Hinata winces as the back his head gets slammed against a door, Kageyama gripping his hair tightly; Hinata couldn’t move if he tried. “ _Stop_ , I-“ and suddenly all the pain he felt in his scalp gets pushed to the side when Kageyama jerks his head back _just right_ , and suddenly he’s staring eye to eye with that fucking demon, his brain switching off.

“ _You_ are going to get yourself _fucking killed_. I cannot afford to have _your_ death resting on _my_ goddamn reputation all because you won’t listen to me.”

Hinata stares, not even breathing, Kageyama’s bangs falling and intertwining into his own as his head gets locked in its place. He can feel Kageyama’s breath on his lips and nose; it’s hissy and dry, showing Hinata just how much he went through to find him; “ _Never,_ and I mean fucking _never_ pull this bullshit again; I don’t know what I’d do if you ran off a third time- _hey, are you listening??_ ”

Kageyama shakes his head, slamming it back on the door behind him and Hinata lets out a quiet yet still embarrassing whimper. This was fucking _weird_ ; oh my _god_ \- he knew that Kageyama was trying to be menacing but Hinata’s mind was taking this and absolutely running for it, making intimidation into something _waaaay different,_ _oh god-_

“The hotel is _my territory,_ and you will play by the rules that I fucking set for you. Continue to _not_ follow them, and we are going to have serious problems. _Got that, Hinata??_ ”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hinata submits through a gulp; that was so unlike him.. and just as quickly as he had grabbed him, Kageyama lets him go, pulling away and leaving Hinata absolutely goddamn _clueless_ as to what he had just said because it had trickled through one ear and out the other like fucking water in a faucet. Holy shit. _Holy sh-_

And just as Kageyama had his issues with being too angry to listen to Hinata, Hinata had his issues with being too horny to listen to Kageyama. ‘ _Fucking; okay._ Wow _-‘_

“That goes for you, too,” Kageyama directs at Natsu, but she’s not paying attention to Kageyama, no, she’s fucking beaming at her brother. _“Yessir,”_ she calls, clearly knowing what was going on with her older brother and Hinata drags thumb across his neck at her, begging her to keep quiet as another hand dug into his thigh as to prevent a raging boner from popping forth as Kageyama turns back to Yamaguchi _. “We’ll be leaving now._ I’m sorry if this guy- _these two_ gave you any sort of trouble.”

Hinata looks back up; “wai- _wait_ -“

“No, you’re not.”

Hinata sees Kageyama visibly stiffen as Tsukishima rounds the corner in front of Yamaguchi, moving all slow and mysterious, like his friend _hadn’t_ almost just been murdered. Hinata can only imagine what this is like for Kageyama, who had just got here and had literally no idea what was going on. “ _Who are you?_ Hinata, do you know him??” asks Kageyama in a low tone, his gaze flicking rapidly between the two, on edge.

“Name️’s Tsukishima; and this is Yamaguchi. And your idiot friend of yours made a deal with us.”

“ _Oh yeah, just word it like that,”_ the ginger mutters, “thanks _asshole.’_

“You did _what_ -“

Hinata jumps as Kageyama turns on him, “Kageyama, _they’re a biologist and a technician!!_ We _need_ them!”

Kageyama frowns, then, without turning away from Hinata, looks over to the other two men. “Is that true...?”

Tsukishima counters, and even though his words had been truthful, Hinata found himself clenching his teeth together. “How many people do you have at your base?”

And, for maybe just a fraction of a second, Hinata’s relieved. But Kageyama just lowers his weapons, his head tilting in a sneer; “why does it matter...?”

‘ _Oh my god._ ’ Hinata nearly breaks with pressure and steps out openly next to him, well within stabbing reach; “ _Kageyama can you_ please _for once in your life give someone a direct answer??!_ ”

From somewhere behind them, Hinata hears Tsukishima laugh; that _smug ass laugh_ \- 

“If you _really_ want to do me a favor sometime, get me one of those bomb shell shards so I can look at the bacteria properly.”

Hinata turns and stares; what, does he think he’s stupid? He remembers people with just half their torso rising back to life after those bombs hit. “But- don’t those turn you into biters?”

“ _No.”_

‘ _Oh_.’ What?

“This- _thing,_ works like venom. It’s is a blood transmission thing, you could touch it- _hell,_ you could even _swallow it_ and have it pass through your digestive tract and it wouldn’t harm you so long as it doesn’t get into _a cut_.”

Hinata blinks, hardly understanding a word that Tsukishima had just said. “ _Oh_. So, like- don’t get the shit in your blood??”

Tsukishima nods. “Maybe I’ll tell you more about it if you get me what I need.”

 _“No thanks,”_ waves off Hinata, “thanks for that information but anything beyond that, we’re good.”

“Get me a good piece of those bombs, _and then_ we’ll talk about coming back to your base.”

The redhead blinks.

 _Was_ _that it??_

Hell, that wouldn’t be so hard, combining the rooftops and scent masking technique- they could get this done in the matter of _an hour_ , all while still looking for Kenma. And now, Hinata wasn’t alone-

“ _Nope_. No way in hell. Hinata, we’re going home _right fucking now.”_

Kageyama hits a pressure point in the nape of his neck, making Hinata wince and forcefully move along. “ _Ouch-_ _Kageyama!_ ”

The ginger swats his hand away as it comes at him again, turning to face him; “what the _fuck_ is wrong with you?? This is literally the only time we’ll ever get this opportunity and you’re just- going to _pass it all up,_ are you _joking??_ ”

“These two are _not_ _essential_ to our survival and if we have to take our precious time trying to reel them back, I don’t care. What _is_ essential is that _I_ get home so that _I_ can tend to _my fucking people_ and stop running after _your dumb ass!”_

“You weren’t _ever_ obligated to come find me, smartass,” defends Hinata, “you did this on your _own accord._ And besides, I’m not coming back without Kenma and that’s that, so don’t even _try_ to get me to come home. If I’m not back after two days at the most, assume that I’m dead.”

Kageyama curls his fingers; “I can’t let you do that.”

“ _Why?_ I thought you _didn’t care,_ prick.”

“I fucking _don’t_ , _I just_ … I’d feel responsible for you _dying_ if I just let you run off in there, dumbass.”

Kageyama’s voice dips; that “ _dumbass_ ” was a little too soft per usual. Hinata can tell- he’s being serious, and admittedly Hinata gets concerned. “ _That_ \- Kageyama, if I die, _that’s all on me, you know-“_

“I _do_ know, but I just-“ Yamaguchi and Tsukishima and especially Natsu quietly listen on, seemingly enjoying the drama.

“ _Hey_.” Hinata turns to him, approaching cautiously, trying to regain eye contact. Kageyama won’t look at him so Hinata, like the nagging piece of shit that he was, leans over into what was most certainly his field of view. “Stop beating yourself up, I can hold my own-“

“ _See_ , Hinata- _that’s_ the problem with you. You think you can do _so fucking much_ by yourself but you fucking _can’t_ -”

Hinata snorts. “ _Damn_ ; isn’t _that_ hypocritical?”

Kageyama wheels around on him quickly and Hinata gets straight to his justification; “Kageyama, _come with me_. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, just-“

The raven haired man stops inches in front of him, creating massive amounts of sexual tension for Hinata and he gulps, taking a step back. “I… need your help, Kageyama.”

Kageyama’s eyes lighten, and he gives him this funny look, something like confused. Fucking _Christ_ , why had he _said it_ like that? Why the hell did he always find himself softening up for this man, anyways? And hardening you’re in other areas-

All Kageyama ever did was find a way to push him around, trying to set him straight- and even though Kageyama’s reasonings for being an asshole made sense, being an asshole itself _still_ wasn’t exactly an attractive quality. He knew he cared about what Kageyama did though; he could tell by the way his body reacted to the things he told him. How he’d frozen up knowing how the guy felt at the base, how interested he got when he wouldn’t tell him the reason why he saved him.

Hinata really, truthfully cared about Kageyama. It wasn’t anything along the lines of a crush yet, but especially with Natsu and Yachi feeding him, he wouldn’t be surprised if his emotions escalated. Adrenaline and love we’re two very similar emotions, and in a zombie apocalypse, that shit wasn’t hard to mix up. Only difference was adrenaline was a boost, and love was desperation.

“I’m not going back until I’ve at least _searched_ the old house for Kenma, so... it’s either you go home, or you come with me.” _  
_

Kageyama’s look gently fades. He looks at Hinata with those unreadable blue eyes and his lips twitch. 

“ _Hey, blonde guy._ ”

Kageyama’s body shifts just a little but his eyes never leave Hinata’s. His voice gets just a little bit softer and more confident; “ _how far up north we talking?_ ”

Hinata busts out in an uncontrollably wide grin. Natsu just shifts from where she stands.

  
  
  
  


“So… what’re we doing out here, Kiyoko-san?”

Outside the walls. This something either of the two did regularly, but for whatever reason the older woman was convinced that she needed Yachi out here with her. “Making sure that the lurkers don’t get too close to base.”

Yachi speaks her flighty mind. “And this was this our job since _when...?”_

“Since I wanted to talk to you without the potential entirety of the base hearing.”

The blonde is sure that nothing was meant by those words, however she can’t help the anxiety that erupts from them- not to mention the stress that’s comes from their location, already threatening to sink her. Yachi hates being outside of the walls, even more so in a place with someone she looked up to so heavily.

Yachi’s never killed a lurker and she’s not sure she could to save her life. Maybe with a gun she could, but the thrill the guys gushed about when they killed them with bludgeons and knives… _definitely_ a man thing, not a Yachi thing.

There weren’t too many other girls here who assumed some sort of 24/7 position at the base- in fact, since the disappearance of Saeko, Yachi and Kiyoko had really glued to one another, while Michimiya and all the rest of the girls banded elsewhere in their own little group the same way the guys did outside. It was to the point where Yachi wasn’t so sure she wasn’t the only one Kiyoko held a conversation with.

_‘What’s with me and buddying up with closed off people?’_

Yachi fidgets around uncomfortably. “Are... they okay without you there?”

Kiyoko seems to pick up who Yachi is referring to when she says _“they;”_ she meant the orphaned, still having a guilt factor tied into saying it. Kiyoko had made it her duty to tend to those who were missing their parents the day of the panic, and even months after it broke Yachi’s heart too much to refer to them as… well, orphans. _“Of course-_ left the youngest of ‘em with Sugawara and Asahi, the rest are probably out playing by now.”

Yachi’s head spins when she hears nothing more than wind. _“Y-yeah…_ so what did you wanna talk about…?”

The lady’s casual voice still confused her sometimes, unaccustomed to anything beyond her quiet tremor did. “Nothing in particular,” she says brushing at her feet with the pole in her hand, “how’s Hinata?”

“Natsu-chan? Oh, she’s been doing well; taken a particular fondness to the-“

“No, I meant the guy. What’s his name again?”

Taken aback, Yachi blinks. Kiyoko hadn’t even ever _mentioned_ Hinata before _._ ‘ _I guess he is pretty popular around here, though. He has been since day one…’_

“Hinata? He’s…”

Oh god.

_‘Can you keep a secret, Yacchan?’_

Had Kiyoko figured out he was gone? Was Kageyama after him by now?? _Probably_. Guilt rattled her body, remembering how she’d helped the two escape; she knew they were in deep shit no matter if they died to lurkers or to Kageyama.

“Er, well, he’s- no different than usual, you know- ambitious, healing…” Yachi fiddles with her fingers, “I haven’t- like, _checked up on him_ yet today, you know, so- who knows where he is...”

The questioning look on Kiyoko’s face lets her know that she’s been compromised. 

“Yachi-san, do you like Hinata?”

‘ _What_ -‘ The blonde jumps at this question; she’s heard the guys joke about it so many times before but she wouldn’t have _ever_ been ready for it to come out of Kiyoko’s mouth; “ _No!!_ No, _god no,_ he’s like- a best friend to me, it’s weird thinking about him like that… and, well, plus, I think he’s…”

Uh oh. With a trailing voice, Yachi wishes she would’ve never brought this up. “ _He’s…?”_ Kiyoko pressures quietly. 

“ _He…_ hasn’t ever told me this ever so don’t like; _count me word for word_ here, but- think he’s… he’s- like… er, he’s a _little_...“

Kiyoko blinks. “It’s okay take your time.”

“ _I_ \- boys. Hinata likes boys.”

The woman stares at her in surprise but, her eyebrows raise in interest. Yachi figures that the last person to go off spreading this information was Kiyoko, so- this- this stuff was okay to spill to Kiyoko, right? Surely Hinata wouldn’t hate her for this?? Hinata wasn’t that kind of guy, and neither was Kiyoko.

“You should see the way that he talks about Kageyama-kun, my lord; he’s absolutely _obsessed_ with him,” vents Yachi, “any time he like- picks his nose or shuffles his feet, Hinata has to tell me about it- and like, hell, I don’t even mind. The level of respect he has for Kageyama… it’s just; it’s _so real._ You can feel how much he cares for him, even though he never says it outright.”

Kiyoko laughs a little. “So is that why he’s been so desperate to get outside lately? I heard Kageyama pulled a knife on Ennoshita yesterday morning because he threatened Hinata.”

Yachi stops, startled. Hinata hadn’t told her _that_ ; Hinata usually tells her _everything._ “After they ran off and stayed outside overnight?”

Kiyoko nods and, fuck- Yachi honestly really can’t say that she doesn’t believe that.

Was Kageyama _actually_ softening up for Hinata?

Also, just how obsessed was Hinata with going outside if he was more focused on leaving than conversing with anybody else? Usually it was his main priority to get his thoughts straight with Yachi, but...

Perturbed, the blonde girl’s gaze hits the ground. Kiyoko takes off after one of the orphans and the blonde’s eyes focus on the cracks in the roads, lidded.

That boy was going to be the death of her. _And maybe the death of himself, too._

  
  
  
  


“ _Kageyamaaaaa, hurry up._ ”

Kageyama takes a glance down at the ground. He couldn’t even _see_ pavement due to the lurkers infesting the area, and his face wilts into a discomforted wince. “Hinata, _both of you-_ stay fucking close. This is way too dangerous.”

The redheaded man turns around, his eyebrows raised. “See, you know, _there’s_ your problem. You’re too focused on what’s going on on the ground instead of what’s just- _layed in front of you;_ you’re overwhelming yourself.”

Natsu trails behind them in silence, this look on her face that reeked of her elder brother’s- all smug for reasons only _they_ knew. Kageyama finally stalks up just feet behind Hinata, not daring to go as close to the edge as Hinata was; _just how invincible did that little fucker think he was?_ As if there wouldn’t be a consequence for hanging off the side of a building or something; it wasn’t ballsy, it was fucking _idiotic_. “We should just turn back. I have more important things to be doing than running errands for some shitty blonde guy who doesn’t have enough of a pair to do it for himself.”

“Oh, _come on,_ too late to turn back now. Plus, Suga-san said that we have enough resources to last us for a little while, right? May as well get things done while we have the time.”

Kageyama clicks his tongue as Hinata carefully scopes out his jumping distance from the edge. _“Not enough to last us forever.”  
_

Natsu, next to him, grins. “You may as well give into him; trying to get him to do things the safe way isn’t in his blood.”

Snorting, Hinata then spins around towards him, building up for that running start. He trots up right next to the two before pausing, making a square with his hands and looking through it with one eye, tongue tucked out in concentration. Kageyama stares at that face with blank thoughts for a little while- fuck, maybe a little longer than necessary. Why did Hinata _do_ those things…? Natsu pushes his hand back down to his side, telling him to stop. Though the two seemed distant at the hotel, out here they felt inseparable.

“How far do you think until we reach the bombing sites?” Asks Kageyama.

In response, Hinata just shrugs, popping his neck with the flick of the head. _“Dunno_. We never lived in Tokyo to begin with, and now its all- _fucked up and dark_. Even if it was hit, I feel like we should be able to see at least half skytree, though; it was _huge._ Damn, I was- actually _right next to it_ like twenty minutes before those bombs hit, man. If Kenma wouldn’t have dragged me away from it…”

Hinata’s voice trails off and Kageyama looks away, frowning, centering his focus on one of the massive buildings just several streets away. The gaping hole in the side of it was too far upright to make the entire building collapse, but it still made him uneasy, the thought of that did. It was so fucking huge. The way it still smoked after weeks... _How long had he been doing this?_ Running for his life and trying to be dependable??

It felt like years.

Hinata takes off with the scraping of shoes and neatly lands on the other side; _right_ , the only thing they could do now was go forward. Natsu is quick to follow in his lead and Kageyama trails after them much slower, terror consuming him with every jump but fortunately never enough to seize him up. Thankfully, the buildings here were so dense that they didn’t really have to worry about cutting corners- what _did_ worry Kageyama was just about everything else. ‘ _How stable are these roofs we’re running on? I wouldn’t even have the time to scream Hinata’s name before he was being torn limb from limb if he fell. What if I twist my ankle on a run up? What if the bomb shards are useless and don’t contain any bacteria anymore, or what if I have just a tiny sliver in the tip of my finger and get infected?’_

_“Hey, Kageyama-kun!”_

The man looks up to see Hinata already a couple of buildings away. He looked so- _careless._ Not much more could be said about his sister, the two were the same damn breed. “You coming?”

Kageyama’s eyes darken, and at a relatively slow and careful sprint, he makes his way back to the two, who stops and waits for his approach. “Kageyama, are you alright? Do we need to, like- stop for a little bit or something??”

The raven-haired man gives him a dry laugh in response. He wasn’t even breathing heavy yet. “ _Of course not.”_

“No, idiot; you’re stressed out. Sit down for a second.”

Kageyama growls; “Hinata, I have people to get back to-“

Hinata proceeds to plop down on his ass, crossing his legs; this fuckers idea of _time management_ was not satisfactory to Kageyama. “Is it all the lurkers?”

“ _What the fuck else would it be???”_ Kageyama snaps, and Hinata raises his eyebrows, nodding subtly as he swings his body around to sit on the edge of the roof. His feet dangle towards the piranha pit below them. “Fair point.”

“ _Hey, dumbass;_ don’t _sit_ like that, you’re giving me anxiety.”

The ginger looks him dead in the eyes as he inches closer to the edge. Kageyama drags him back by the handle of the pack around his shoulders, his body going limp like he was a paralyzed cat before Kageyama collapsed next to him, sighing loudly into his hands. “This is _hell_.”

Hinata pulls his bag off his shoulders, digging around for a cereal bar. Quietly, the ginger agrees as he pops the honey-flavored food into his mouth. _“Yeah.”_ He pulls off a piece for Kageyama and offers it to him, who denies it. Hinata proceeds to chuck it at a lurker below them, where it bounces off one of their heads and Kageyama slaps the entire bar out of his hand. “ _Hey!!“_

“Cut that shit out.”

Hinata nearly bails off the building in chase after it and Kageyama sticks his arm out to catch him so, naturally, Hinata wheels around and slaps him. It wasn’t even a hard slap, but- “Wait- _no_ -“

Infuriated, Kageyama instantly tackles him, shoving him flat on his back, pinned by the shoulders; the side of the ginger’s face smacks against the cement behind him. “I will fucking _murder_ -“

But before any strangulation commences, something above them catches Natsu’s eye. “ _Woah_ , guys, wait-“

Kageyama looks to see her pointing, his gaze following the trail of her finger. Doesn’t take too long to figure out what the girl was talking about. Hidden amongst the shattered buildings, it wasn’t anything particularly noticeable or spectacular; but when you were looking for it specifically, it stood out _just well enough_. A tall, slanted half of a silver building jutted out just a little above the rest, jagged and broken; it looked like a slender glass shard poking out of the ground. There was smoke; so much smoke, not thick smoke but it was _everywhere_ …

 _The remains of Skytree_. 

They’d _found it._

He hears Hinata let out a shocked wheeze of a laugh beneath him, echoing his thoughts; “Kageyama; _we found it._ ”

 _Wow._ Like they’d done something good, Kageyama grins, proud. Hinata’s eyes still scanned the ground away from him, so wide that they reflected all the sky and the contrasted shapes that rose above them. He was smiling. Hinata finally turns towards him, those eyes of his so genuinely excited; “Kageyama _we did it._ ”

There’s a glance off to the side, a glance at Natsu and in that mere instant the ecstatic look on Hinata’s face gets wiped clean. Kageyama doesn’t get to see what’s irked Hinata so much before he starts ramming at the guy’s chest. “Come on, get off of me _asshole_ ; you’re the one that keeps complaining about burning daylight.”

How long had they even been traveling for? _“Yeah.”_

Kageyama crawls off of him, his face still stinging lightly from where Hinata had swatted him. Even quicker, Hinata rises to his feet, immediately taking off in a sprint, not slowing down between buildings. Kageyama knows his motive. _‘Oh fuck-‘_

He’s still after Kenma.

_“Niichan??!”_

The two left behind don’t even exchange glances before they’re off just as fast. “ _Hey!! dumbass, slow down!_ ”

‘ _He’s gonna fucking fall, god damn it-‘_

They’re all covering ground as quickly as possible, way too fast to be within the margin of safe, damn it. Why wouldn’t Kageyama slow down? They were all headed in the same direction anyways. The redheaded man hoists himself up on top of a building that he just barely snags; “ _dumbass, wait!_ ”

Scrabbling to his feet, Hinata suddenly stops- and Kageyama knows it’s not because he was listening to him, Hinata never listens. ‘ _He’s looking at something.’_ Real question was what would be enough to stop _Hinata_ in his tracks?

Kageyama throws his arms back before flinging onto the building, his torso hitting brick and making him wince, Natsu there a split second later with heaving breaths. “ _Guys...”_

The raven-haired man pulls his body to the top, panting, blood pumping in his ears, ready to chew the fucker out; they were so high off the ground that the lurkers beneath them were mere growls in the wind. With Kageyama crawling onto two feet, coughing, Hinata mutters above him; “ _look_.”

The man wipes his mouth and obliges; instantly feeling the breath that he craved so heavily leave him once more.

Buildings flattened by the remains of the top half of Skytree, still leaking smoke from areas that smoldered and tossed embers into the air- this stretch had been completely devastated. Any areas formerly green had been blackened by ash and the remnants of a fire breakout, _crawling_ with lurkers. Natsu brushes up into him, her skin hot and sickly. “ _Holy shit._ ”

They’d found Skytree, alright.

“ _So_ ,” Hinata breathes, not taking his focus off the ground, “what’s your vote, big guy?”

Kageyama looks up. “My _vote?”_

“Yeah. Either we try out a super cool new technique Tsukishima taught me on the ground near Skytree, where we _know_ there are pieces left, or we get inside the toppling buildings and risk falling to our deaths where we’re not so sure. Your pick, I’m open to both.”

 _“Ew,”_ Natsu remarks, “please don’t tell me you’re talking about the fucking…”

“What kind of _technique_ did those assholes teach you..?”

Hinata looks up at him, the clarity of the sun revealing striking detail to his face and reflecting circles in those rich brown irises of his that only got lighter beneath the sun’s beams; they were only to be shadowed by the strands of his hair being bossed around by the breeze. The man finds himself getting almost _lightheaded_ ; was the air fucking thinner up here, or something? “You ever thought about _scent masking,_ Kageyama-kun?”

Natsu sighs heavily. “Niichan, why-“

A pointer finger gets sent to the ground and Kageyama follows it. There’s… nothing that catches Kageyama’s eye. “We _smell_ like one of them, we _are_ one of them. It could be a quick and easy way in and out with those bomb pieces; the only problem is I’ll most likely throw up in the process, and if the scent comes off…”

Kageyama gets where he’s coming from but still frowns. “You’re suggesting we drown ourselves in _lurker guts?_ How the hell do you know if that’ll even _work??_ ”

“Tsukishima walked through a crowd of them while I was there, and it sounded like he’d been out there for a lot longer. I didn’t ask how long it’d last, but- my guess is that it lasts for more or less an hour long while it’s still all fresh and goopy.”

Wiping the sweat off his face, Kageyama exhales heavily; “let’s get up a little closer to Skytree before we do anything. I’d like to get a better view of what we’re dealing with- and I’d like to take the easy way out, but in all honesty, neither look too easy.”

“I don’t think we _can_ get any closer,” says the redhead, “the building in front of this one is too low; the only way we’d get onto it without snapping our ankles is if we found a way inside the building and leapt from a window.”

‘ _Fuck- of course.’_

“Then we’ll head back down; surely we can find a window or hole that we can at least get down _onto the ground_ in.”

“I can go look,” Natsu offers, to which Hinata cocks a brow. _“You? By yourself??_ You heard Yamaguchi, this place is crawling with scout groups.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t Kageyama have some elaborate map on him or something, shouldn’t he be writing this stuff down??”

“Why does that include me, why do I have to stay up here, too?”

“Yeah, take him with you,” Kageyama remarks, to which Hinata turns on him crossly, “oh, well now I’m gonna stay just because he doesn’t want me to-“

Natsu gets a glock handed to her by Kageyama, the one he’d used before he got tossed the revolver, “whatever’s below us is probably infested, so don’t worry about saving ammunition if it means saving your own life.”

 _“-And when you die, at least I won’t have to tell mom about how it was all endorsed by me,”_ says Hinata with a thumb to his own chest, and Natsu glares as she pulls the pipe out from a loop on his bag. _“I won’t go far._ I’ll just make sure this first floor or two is clear.”

“Bring back souvenirs,” Hinata calls as the girl disappears into the stairwell behind them, and Kageyama hears him snort while he pulls his shit from the ground. “You’re really just- gonna let her go _by herself?”_

_“Yeah...?”_

Kageyama snorts. “How responsible you are.”

“Well, you go out here by yourself _everyday.”_

“Not into infested territory after I’ve been holed inside for a month, but- _I trust her._ She’s like you but less annoying and more quiet.”

And Hinata’s eyes darken a little bit at this. “Didn’t used to be like that, not before the apocalypse- but I think she seems a little bit happier out here.”

Kageyama spreads out what he has- a combination of an atlas covered in his own special markings, paper taped off to the sides, notes- he shrugs. “I think we’re too far up to get anything accurate, but… I’m not sure I wanna be out here again, anyways.”

“Can I at least see it? The map??” Asks Hinata, plopping down next to him, “I wanna know where all you’ve been.”

With a raise of the eyebrows, Kageyama huffs- but half a second later, he pulls Hinata’s hand down on top of the papers to make sure they didn’t flutter away, as Kageyama does way with his notebook. ‘ _Fuck; dunno what day it is.’_ He makes do with the entry of “second month.”

**_I don’t know exactly where we are, but it’s almost directly north of our base, well out of the red markings outlining our safe area. Like-_ _miles_ _out of our safe area range. Skytree has collapsed from bombings, & this place is absolutely crawling with_**

“ _Hey_ , ‘Yama.”

Kageyama trails off as Hinata snaps a finger; “ _c’mere_.”

He’s on his knees, the map splayed out in front of him and Kageyama leans forwards to get a better visual. The ginger points a finger; “what’re these _red lines_ for...?”

With his own index finger, Kageyama traces the dried red ink over. “See how they kind of outline around the base? Everything inside those lines are areas I can go to without having to worry much about lurkers. Everything beyond that- _fuck that shit.”_

“Huh. You still got that red marker?”

Kageyama pulls it out and hands it to him, expecting him to correct things-

“ _Fuuuucckk… thaaaatttt… shiiit.. There_ we go. Swear words catch the eye, you know.”

Unimpressed by his bad, uppercase handwriting, Kageyama gives him a questioning stare as Hinata hands him back the marker like he hadn’t done anything wrong. “Ooh, wait wait, give that back- can I write something in your notebook?”

“What?? _Hell_ no.”

“I’m not going to draw a fucking penis over the top of your work, I promise- I’m not _that_ stupid. I know I’d be biter food if I even _touched_ your work.”

Kageyama glares at him in a gentle manner before handing him his stuff, and immediately Hinata gets excited, going wild on the first page of the tiny booklet. _“I’m gonna draw a penis-“_

“ _Anyways-_ it’s ridiculously hard to map the entire thing out; sometimes I forget blocks or something and I find myself in the wrong spot, or some days they’ll be easy entry and other days they’ll be loaded with lurkers. I guess I can’t really control the lurkers, but everything else is on me...”

Hinata shoots a wicked grin at the notebook and Kageyama can only imagine what the _fuck_ he’s writing in there. Hell, maybe he’s doodling? The man can’t tell; his movements were too erratic.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing??”

Hinata slams it shut and hands him back the booklet, where Kageyama immediately proceeds to open it. It was littered with red dicks and hearts of various ranges of length and width;

**Dear Bakayama, (next to it there was a doodle of a pile of shit with the caption “ _that’s you!_ ” next to it.)**

**Hinata was here, XOXO**

**I <(hate)3 U**

**PSA call me for a good time** ♥ 

“Get it? Because like- the hate is inside the heart, I hate you with my whole heart?? Laugh now.”

From next to him, Kageyama glares without a smile. 

But, his heart is warm. And it’s evident in the tone that comes out when he speaks; “if I could draw a middle finger in response, I would. _And what’s with your dick obsession?”_

“Hey, don’t call it that, that makes me seem predatory. It’s more like... _a craving._ Plus I can’t draw a vagina, so- I just like dick, okay.”

“Like you’ve ever seen one.”

Blinking once or twice, Hinata continues: _“sometimes I forget that you can have a sense of humor and it catches me off guard every single time it happens.”_

And, for the first time since this damn apocalypse- for the first time he can genuinely even _remember_ , Kageyama laughs loudly and clearly with his voice echoing off the empty buildings.

He’s- _oddly happy._

Well, maybe not _happy_ but, contented- _right?_ Especially for where the fuck he was. Maybe bottling things up for over a month had really gotten to him.

“Woah, hey, are those _teeth??_ I don’t think I’ve ever seen you even smile before-“

“Yes you have; shut up, asshole.”

Hinata points to a more blank half of the map before the man can argue too much. “Hey, Kageyama-kun- What about _over here?_ It looks like towards the east; there aren’t many lines over here. It- doesn’t even seem all that touched yet…”

“I… well, I _haven’t_ really gone out there yet; not for any particular reason, just haven’t found the need to yet. It seemed kind of, like, _bland_ over there and once I knew there were about eight million lurkers north of us, I started focusing more on up here than anything. You know, like, trying to watch their movements and stuff. I pray we never have to deal with a group this size, Jesus Christ, we’ll all be fucking dead.”

Hinata tilts his head. “So that _is_ east? Is it dangerous, though?”

“Not particularly. Not near the base, anyways- Daichi and I actually planned to start heading in that direction if we ever got overrun. We seem to be relatively okay in the lurker department in every direction around us. _We got lucky.”_

“Hella,” responds Hinata, his eyes skimming over the map again.

And again.

Kageyama squints. “Hinata...”

_“You looking for Kenma...?”_

A quiet but still audible gasp escapes from where he sits, like he never would’ve guessed that the man would catch on and Kageyama stifles an amused exhale. “You know, I know it’s not any of my business, but if I may ask- what exactly _was_ Kenma to you?”

The air between them thickens as the neutral look on Hinata’s face falls even darker. Now, Kageyama hasn’t heard shit about this guy’s sexuality, but Hinata seemed overly comfortable talking about men and “penis craving,” more so than any guy wrapped up in toxic masculinity would, so Kageyama presses on; “... _boyfriend...?_ ”

The redhead shrugs in honesty. “I mean… sometimes I wonder if that’s how it _should’ve_ ended up, but- _no,_ just… really good friends, my _best friend,_ actually. _Maybe_ …no, _definitely_ my only friend…” Hinata pauses, giving him a sheepish look; “ _God_ ; besides my mother and my little sister, Kenma is just about the only thing that I’ve ever had. We’ve known each other since my first year of high school, and I guess I had a lot of friends back then and all, but- _fuck_ , they never really cared about me, if I’m being honest. I was just the- like, the _dumb third wheel_ that got invited to the occasional party even when they went on every other night. The person everyone loved but no one’s favorite. Not a single one of them came to me when I...”

Hinata trails off and Kageyama’s interest peaks. _“When you…?”_

The ginger’s face scrunches, and Kageyama’s surprised about just how… _open_ he is. He rambles a lot. “ _When I was all alone,”_ he finishes, “Kenma was the one that reached out to me when no one else would and he never failed me, not once. He was my literal therapist at one point since we were too broke to waste money on a real therapist or anti-depression drugs, and we haven’t seen my piece of shit father since he walked out on us right after Natsu was born; maybe like a year. By the time I was thirteen I was having to work two different jobs in the fields just to help keep us from hitting poverty, isn’t that fucking _crazy...?_ ” He smiles grimly before his face immediately falls in self awareness, “I- sorry, I’m really oversharing-“

“Keep going.”

Hinata’s head dips guiltily. “...You’re sure?”

“Doesn’t bother me. This isn’t even the same world anymore.”

The redhead gulps. _“Kenma_ … he made me a better person and I don’t think he realizes that. He always talked about how _I_ helped him out when, man, he helped _me_ figure out who I _really was._ Kenma’s _always_ fucking been there for me, which is why I have to be there for _him._ I _have_ to, Kageyama...”

“I promised him.”

Wind throws Hinata’s bangs into his eyes but other than that he’s completely motionless, a look of dejection so prominent on his face that almost made Kageyama feel like apologizing. That was one _hell_ of a backstory, though; his obsession with Kenma was because Kenma was family to him. “So, you feel… _debted_ to Kenma?”

Hinata meets his eyes. He’s not crying, but he seems a little shaken up. “That’s kind of a harsh way of putting it.”

So, was he wrong?

“Can I ask you another question? It’s- not as personal this time, promise.”

The ginger snorts in a sort of somber way, his facial expression all the same but there was a soft smile on his face now. “ _Depends on if it’s something I wanna hear._ ”

“Wow, that’s- _funny._ _You’re funny.”_

Hinata chuckles lightly, flinching out of the way as Kageyama batted at his head with careful hands. “ _Dumbass_ -“

“ _Okay okay,_ just- get to the point; you’re gonna make the map fly away, stupid.”

The smile on Kageyama’s face slowly seeps away until there’s nothing left of it, not even his eyebrows raised to remind them of what was once before. “ _What’s your real name?_ ”

And suddenly, Hinata stiffens.

“ _What_ \- what do you mean?”

 _“Don’t play dumb._ Your first name, you’ve never told anyone and neither has Natsu. What is it??”

And out of nowhere, Hinata gives resistance, his pitch rising defensively; “ _that’s_ \- that’s not important right now, we should just- find Natsu, _get going-_ “

Before the Kageyama can continue, Hinata’s rising onto his feet, jumbling up the wrinkled, taped papers- “ _Hey_ , don’t _rip_ that…”

And as a messy, wadded ball, Hinata shoves it into Kageyama’s chest, proceeding to turn and bound to the stairs without another word being said, disappearing and leaving Kageyama with a furrowed brow.

And for the first time, Kageyama is confused because _Hinata’s_ the one running away from his questions. _‘What the hell…?’_

What was so important about his _first name_ , anyways?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how many chapters will it take for ratpudz to FINALLY figure out how ao3 works 🤔 tune in next time for more of me fucking up html with excessively long chapters and inappropriate dialogue


	6. entry without exit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which revelations of “the center” don’t come to light at all- in fact, they just get more confusing. A lot more happens this chapter but it’s currently 2:42 in the fucking morning and if you think i have the energy to spoil the surprise i don’t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[THERE ARE ONCE AGAIN PROBLEMS WITH THE FUCKING HTML I CAN LITERALLY NEVER CATCH A BREAK ON THIS SHIT ASS WEBSITE ILL FIX IT LATER it’s not that hard of a fix it’ll probably be done later today im just. pain]]
> 
> hi im back after vanishing for two months. gonna be completely honest when i say the rewrite of this chapter confused the living hell out of me and that’s part of the reason it took so excessively long to shit out because there were a ton of new concepts that werent in the old script being added all while i was trying to maintain the chapter’s beta structure so be warned the transitions in this chapter are genuinely fucking HORRIBLE LMFOSKF it’s just super lore-heavy and almost super filler feeling like how do you write 13k and still have the chapter feel like nothing happened 💔
> 
> anyways here’s your food. hopefully you won’t starve for another two months on this heavy of a cliffhanger.

“Natsu, you there??”

Hinata seems to stir when he doesn’t get a response. “My god, if she fucking died-“

“She’s probably a few floors down, just stay quiet.”

The two men dart from floor to floor, suspiciously devoid of all lurkers and more worryingly a little sister. Kageyama isn’t the most attentive when it comes to checking the cubicles but Hinata checks every last one; it’s come to Kageyama’s attention that the guy, on top of his sharp reflexes, actually did have a decent awareness of his surroundings when he wasn’t in direct confrontation, and admittedly Kageyama trusted that wherever Hinata was on his backside that he’d have it covered.

Doesn’t mean he was always  _ on  _ his backside, though.

“You alright?”

“Right on your ass, chief.”

He definitely wasn’t, but he’d be there in a heartbeat if something happened. “Good.”

Halfway down, still no Natsu. Hinata’s anxiety pelts off in waves.  _ “Natsu!!” _

Kageyama whallops him in the gut. “Quiet-“

_ “Guys??!” _

_ There  _ she is. “Told you she wasn’t dead-”

And damn near three steps later the stench of a lurker bashes their noses so hard both the two pull into a wince at the same time.  _ “You sure about that?” _

Natsu pops around a corner, very clearly having had to take care of a lurker or two on the way down and Hinata picks up his pace when he notices her. “Come check this out.”

“What is i-”

The ginger cuts off at a horrible squishing sound beneath his feet.

Screaming at the decaying arm at his shoes, Hinata leaps backwards so far he nearly bowls into Kageyama in the process. But, the lurker doesn’t stand to chase after him. “ _ It’s already dead _ , dumbass,” Kageyama notes.

_ Very _ dead.

Blood sprayed up against the wall, the lurker laid sprawled out like a starfish on the ground, a wound gaping in the head but otherwise untouched. Hinata blinks, his tightened muscles relaxing as Kageyama stalks around him with his eyebrows lowered as he stares at the lurker’s caving forehead. Hinata utters the words echoing around in Kageyama’s mind. “You didn’t do this, did you?” 

Kageyama falls onto one knee, examining it as Natsu nods; “nope. And that’s not all.”

Dead in the center of its forehead lies a bullet hole, one with a strong enough kick to shatter the remains of its skull, evident by how Kageyama poked it with his knife and its head dented inwards. _ “Huh,” _ says Hinata, “someone’s got a nice shot.”

“Yeah, and they’ve also got enough bullets to not be worried about wasting them on a single lurker. It’s fresh, too- the blood on the walls are still damp.”

Kageyama shudders, wondering just how far away these other people were- what the consequences would’ve been if Natsu would’ve found them first. Kageyama didn’t like the idea of running into  _ anyone  _ who used their weapons that ostentatiously. From the outside pockets of his bag, Kageyama draws his own glock and sticks it deep into the opposite pocket without his knives. “Alright,  _ no more splitting up.  _ If we’re going to cover ourselves head to toe in lurker guts and these guys aren’t afraid to just  _ open fire  _ in the middle of lurker hell, they might just think they can unload on you, too. They probably won’t recognize us as human at first if we’re drenched in entrails.”

Hinata nods, looking a little more pale than usual.  _ “Gotcha.” _

… Now _ , fuck,  _ where the hell do you start cutting open a lurker??

“Hey, Kageyama, what organ do you think is gonna smell the worst? Because that’s the one I’m trying to avoid.”

Kageyama speaks his wisdom without looking up. “I’ve heard that if you hit a deer’s appendix while gutting it, you regret it.”

Hinata’s arms flop to his side.  _ “Man, _ do I look like I know where the fuck that  _ is _ ??”

“Of course you don’t,” Natsu sneers.

“Oh, then where is it, anatomical genius?”

“Like I have any idea. The entire thing is decaying, Niichan,  _ everywhere  _ is gonna smell bad.”

Ignoring their banter with tremendous effort, Kageyama sinks a deep wound with his blade into the lurker, then begins tearing it open with his bare hands. “Why don’t you just  _ cut it- _ “

Within seconds, Hinata cuts off with a hard gag, and Kageyama’s head reels as the rotting scent that wafts around them becomes even stronger than before. “Because... these are  _ throwing knives, _ not kitchen knives… dumbass...”

‘ _ Oh god, this is even worse than I was expecting-‘  _ Kageyama doesn’t really know what to do other than partially avert his eyes and grimace as he grabs a handful of-  _ whatever the fuck he was grabbing. _ It gives just a little resistance but ends up snapping out with a gushy sound as brownish, lukewarm blood leaks over his fingertips. In a tentative, nearly regretful manner, he lathes it on his shirt, and Hinata immediately spins around and retches, nearly making Kageyama throw up himself. “Just remember  _ you  _ were the one that suggested this.”

He throws a lump of organs at Hinata’s stomach and the ginger just closes his eyes, his hand clasped around his mouth. “ _ I might’ve changed my mind… _ ”

“You better not have, I’m already downing myself in it.” Kageyama rubs more on his arms; god, he  _ really _ doesn’t fucking want to, but- it was this or be bitten. He didn’t want it to be  _ not enough. _ Hinata joins him a small stretch later, managing to not vomit a second time but gagging and coughing like crazy and threatening to make Kageyama puke, too. “This can’t be healthy…”

“Would you rather be bitten?” Natsu asks, “you definitely wouldn’t be healthy then.”

“Just don’t get it near your eyes or that hand wound of yours-  _ or your crotch. _ Any orifice, really, don’t even wanna fathom the infection you’d get from this shit...”

_ “You missed a spot.” _ Kageyama gets walloped in the back of the head, feeling whatever Hinata had just slapped to the back of his head ooze along his neck, _ “like ya cut, g.” _

“Are you even fucking listening…?”

“Yeah yeah- don’t want yeast infections.”

“Or to lose your entire arm because it got into your hand, dumbass.”

They continue to drench themselves in gore, helping eachother reach areas that the holder couldn’t, avoiding soft spots on the face as much as they could. They were going to have to shower for  _ days _ to get this scent out.

“We look like something out of a horror movie,” Hinata comments to the other two as he strings a loose intestine around his shoulder- and that they do. Kageyama’s sure that, if Hinata and Natsu would’ve made this deal with Tsukishima before Kageyama had found them, he most  _ definitely  _ wouldn’t have recognized the two. “That’s probably a good thing. And whatever you do,  _ don’t lick your lips- _ you’ll vomit again.”

_ ‘This’d better be worth it.’ _

They check one another over once more before they’re off, down the rest of the stairs that would’ve killed Kageyama a few months ago without all this exercise. When they reach the bottom floor, it's their testing grounds- it’s swamped with lurkers. LEading the pack, Hinata is the first one to instinctively take off.

_ “Don’t kill it, idiot!” _

Hinata stops with his metal bar raised and ready as Kageyama cautiously walks closer to a lurker deviated from the crowd. It’s alone, supposedly, and doesn’t even seem to see them... but then, it turns its feeble head, staring Kageyama down with milky eyes and a gurgle that Kageyama can only think to describe as  _ curious _ . The man buckles, ready to whip out his knife if needed, but- the thing simply keeps treading along once it identifies them as unthreatening, and Kageyama scoffs in disbelief- ‘ _ so they really  _ do _ depend on hearing and smell.’  _

Hinata suddenly darts out in front of the man, too quickly for Kageyama to snag him and stops about two inches away from the lurkers face. Surprised but impeded, the lurker just turns and lumbers away, and the ginger turns back to Kageyama with excited eyes. Holy shit. “Well, _ it works,” _ Hinata comments.

“Lets not stick around and give it time to wear off,” replies Natsu. 

Of course, though, the overwhelming feeling of determination didn’t last once they were presented to the horde outside. Out there through the glass, you couldn’t even tell which arm belonged to which lurker, and it was  _ horrifying _ to think that the three of them were about to just  _ walk into _ that. How would the other lurkers respond to thrashing if one of them panicked? Would they just go on about their way? God, this was such a  _ dumb idea,  _ there was too much they didn’t know about these things...

The Hinatas begin walking before Kageyama does and it snaps the guy out of it. “ _ Remember, stay close. We don’t know what’s out there. _ ”

Hinata exhales. “We get it- people, zombies;  _ what’s the difference? _ We’re all the same, only one’s conscious and the other isn’t.”

Kageyama really doesn’t like Hinata’s nonchalant attitude towards life and especially not in situations like these. “I think we should stick along the side of the road where we can get into an alleyway or something if needed,” the raven haired man suggests; but Natsu is quick to shut him down. “What’s the point? Even if we get caught in an alleyway with only fifteen, that’s still fifteen lurkers and only three people in a confined space,” Natsu responds, and Kageyama can’t say she’s wrong. “I say we just truck through it.”

Kageyama sighs; she’s right. What was the point in being cautious if everywhere was  _ just as big of a threat _ ? “Okay, just…”

What was he supposed to say here, stay safe? Was anywhere around here safe?? “Stick to the plan and stick to me. We lose each other and we might not ever see each other again by the way we blend in with the crowd...”

“Listen, Kageyama- there definitely hadn’t been this many lurkers back when we were around, but there sure were a hell of a lot more of them than what you have to deal with at base. Niichan and I- we know what we’re doing just as much as you do.”

“We're in the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse, Kageyama-kun,  _ we’re runners.”  _ Hinata comes up and claps him on the back with his good hand, that annoyingly optimistic tone of his rearing its ugly head; “making stupid decisions is an occupational hazard _.” _

Stopping at the glass at the doors, Kageyama watches, listening to the creatures outside gurgle and growl and realizes that the three of them won’t even be able to hear each other unless they yelled, which wasn't exactly a good idea. In a horde of the sightless, this was going to be all about vision and touch.

“Hinata, you take point where we can see you. You have a better idea where you’re going.”

“We’re not going to be able to get through all those biters without being split up, Kageyama,” Hinata says,  _ “not if we move as three.” _

Vision and touch. A hand about three fourths the size of his own stretches out, and Kageyama accepts it with a firm grasp.

  
  
  


‘ _ This is so uncomfortable and gross jesus fucking-‘ _

Hinata stops at the tug on his arm and waits for Natsu to shoulder past another biter- they’ve been having to stop for one another practically every few seconds, and at this point in time, Hinata was  _ glad _ they were clinging to one another.

They weren’t going to make it all the way to Skytree, that much Hinata did know, but there were  _ plenty _ of bombs that had dropped around here- it shouldn’t be that difficult to find a crater or halved-building or something where they could find a piece or two of the shells. Hinata wondered why the bacteria wasn’t designed to spread through the air- bacteria could do that, right? Wouldn’t that have just been easier?? Maybe that would’ve been harder to engineer… lord if  _ Hinata  _ knows.

‘ _ Eewwwwww, fuuuuuck-‘  _ The ginger shifts uneasily as he feels a lurker gurgle right next to his ear, tightening his grip on Kageyama’s hand; he wondered what Kageyama was thinking right now.

‘ _ We just- need to find a damaged area-‘ _

Hinata sees one a few streets away, but that building was  _ huge _ . Who knows how many pieces of that bomb actually fell to the ground; they need something that was in their relative reach. The only problem with that was they can’t fucking see _ anything _ with all these biters around.

So, they do the only thing that they can,  _ move forward through the crowd. _ The redhead keeps pulling his shoulders up to protect his neck, as if he wouldn’t be infected getting bitten on his shoulder, and every once in a while Hinata feels Natsu jolt when a biter rubs her the wrong way. Even if they were sure they were fine, it didn’t remove the instinctual feeling of discomfort and claustrophobia they got. 

A tug on his arm in a slightly different manner, Hinata can tell this one is deliberate. Hinata stops, turning to him, and Kageyama makes a motion with his head towards the ground beneath Hinata’s feet.

There are cracks. Cracks everywhere in the well-maintenance streets of Tokyo, which could only mean one thing.

Eyes widening, Hinata turns and jostles his way through the swarm with newfound dedication, knowing what was probably now feet away from his position while splinters of uprooted pavement became larger and larger along his path.

The ginger stops when he nearly slips on the suddenly downward-sloping hole in the ground. Just about the only spot devoid of biters in miles.

‘ _ Bomb crater. Bingo, baby.’ _

The other two pull up to his side, looking relieved; this hadn’t been as hard as Hinata had anticipated and he can tell by the soft glean in Kageyama’s eyes that he had a shrivel of confidence now as well. Littered inside of the cavity were bits of silverish steel ranging in size, very well crafted- _the shards they needed._ They looked so innocent; almost pretty, _jesus_ \- what a thought. Hinata figures that they shouldn’t pick them up with their bare hands, I mean- _who_ _knew_ how infectious that stuff was- so, Hinata motions to Kageyama that he’s going to go through his bag and Kageyama obliges, letting Hinata grab his pair of gloves and the little ziplock bags he takes everywhere. It was a good thing that Kageyama had found them when he did, because at least the latter of the two was prepared for just about anything.

Wordlessly sliding one glove on over the top of his wounded hand, he gives Kageyama the other, watching as the raven-haired man makes his way into the crater without hesitation.

But, something’s distracting Hinata. Not something real, but...  _ something in his head.  _ A feeling, not one of nostalgia, no but…  _ of familiarity? _

“ _ Hey, dumbass _ ,” the redhead hears Kageyama whisper, but doesn’t motion to meet his eyes. ‘ _ These buildings…’ _

Hinata turns all the way around him, his eyebrows furrowing until they suddenly darken with a crack of realization that makes his heart plummet.

Yeah, he recognized this place all right.

‘ _ The crater we're standing in right now is the bomb that killed everyone in the cafe.’ _

Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh-  _ fuck _ . If his brain hadn’t suppressed everything he’d seen that day to the best of its cognitive ability, Hinata’s sure he would’ve broken down on the spot. But no, no Hinata gets something different- a wave of excitement.

He knows where he is. He knows where  _ Kenma  _ is. His muscles stiffen automatically as his eyes trail, searching.

‘ _ I know where to go now. I remember.’ _

Natsu’s voice is about the only thing that can break him from his trance. “Niichan, what’s wrong with you?”

“ _ Kenma _ ,” Hinata whispers back.

And before he can even think about what he’s doing, Hinata opposites himself from the crater and takes off, the urgent, undertone whisper of  _ “Hinata!” _ not even reaching his ears with all the hazardously desirous thoughts in his head. ‘ _ Kenma, I’m coming back for you. I never left you Kenma, I didn’t mean it-‘ _

“ _ Hinata!!” _

Hinata bowls his way through the biters, making them hiss and snap at him but Hinata was so desperate,  _ too _ desperate; he sees the ground in front of him with the sky painted gray and Kenma in his clutches, running this exact path. Even if the world had been spinning under his feet at at the time, Hinata recounts every little nook and cranny of detail along the walls and ground, remembers these streets and alleyways to their very last design. Kenma nearly lost his life that day, and even in a state of microsleep would Hinata have accounted for it.

Hinata spins into an alleyway with only a few biters in his midst. ‘ _ Kenma I’m sorry…’ _

The thought of him being  _ this tantalizingly close  _ drives Hinata  _ insane _ . He just wants that warmth back. He  _ needs _ that warmth back;  _ he needs Kenma _ . ‘ _ Kenma I’m sorry!’ _

The redhead’s eyes just barely meet the milky white ones running back at him before the world spins. “ _ Shit!” _

Hinata hits the ground in his back, unable to see but he knows he’s been targeted by a biter. Coming back to his senses, the ginger’s mouth snaps shut, ignoring the strain in his lungs that told him to scream for help- where the fuck was Natsu? Kageyama???

His heart plummets mid-attack. Had they not followed…? Not kept up??

Was he really  _ that _ obsessed?

The shine on the biter’s browning teeth envelops his vision and Hinata pushes upwards on its throat, locking his elbows in place. Oh shiiiiiit, this was  _ bad _ . Kenma wasn’t on his mind anymore. ‘ _ Fuck; Kageyama, help!!’ _

He couldn’t squirm, he couldn’t scream; if he did, the entirety of the biter population would be after his  _ ass _ . All he could do was struggle against the pressing weight of a biter maybe twice his size, still strong even though rotting muscle. Again, as if Kageyama could hear his internal cries, mind howls, ‘ _ Kageyama!!!’ _

And that’s when suddenly, right before the blood that leaked out of the wound fell onto his face, a blade delved all the way through the biter’s head, nearly cutting Hinata’s cheek in the process. 

“ _ Kageyama!” _

Completely and totally blinded, Hinata scrambles to his feet, rapidly blinking off the gore on his eyelids before it got into the corners of his eyes. He sees a shape and bounds towards it, “I’m sorry I-“

And before Hinata knows what’s happening, he’s on his ass again from receiving a hard blow to the chest. But one thing Hinata  _ does know _ for sure is  _ that that is  _ not _ Kageyama _ -

Back slammed against a wall, Hinata tries his hardest to blink away the rest of the blood and when he finally does the click of a gun echoes against his forehead.

Like, a  _ big  _ gun, the kind Kageyama had pulled from the crate yesterday.

Hinata’s eyes open and for the first time, he sees not just one, but  _ two  _ men in front of him, each carrying  _ huge _ guns...

Familiar guns...

_ “Well there; _ I think I recognize this one, Keiji...!”

The ginger follows the barrel of the gun to a man with a deviously confident grin, black hair with white undertones falling unnaturally in the way of slitted yellow eyes, like it wasn’t his natural hairstyle. Yeaaah, he knows this guy.

And suddenly, as he looks along the barrel of that rifle looking for a way out of this mess, Hinata gets drastically offended.

“ _ You  _ were the ones that took our guns yesterday…”

“And now, you’ve got those guns  _ pointed at your brains. _ My advice is to shut the hell up and stop drawing attention to us, we’re not going to blow your head off unless you don’t comply with us.” The same motherfucker who had him pinned and muttering nonsense,  _ him and his knives.  _ Hinata wilts away but stays quiet, knowing he was right. 

“Awful bloody there, Hinata- you get caught in something? And where’s that dark-haired friend of yours-  _ gotta be around, right??”  _ The man holding him asks, and Hinata stiffens, letting out a growl and the man pulls up the rifle from out between his eyes. “I’m Bokuto; Bokuto Koutarou. And this is Akaashi.” 

Hinata squints when this man, Bokuto, offers his hand. He feels threatened, but more so of betrayal than genuine fear; if they wanted to raid him or something, they probably would’ve just let him be mauled by that biter.  _ “Why are you offering hospitality today when just yesterday you were trying to kill me...?” _

“Because you’re not who we thought you were, and the last thing we’re looking for is to pick a fight with another group. So, consider this as our way of makin’ it up to the two of you.”

With a casting glance between those broad fingers and friendly eyes, Hinata accepts Bokuto’s hand with grime loosening their grip. “Well, it’s very nice to  _ actually _ meet you, Hinata-“

“Okay, I hate to barge into you two’s  _ lovely conversation, _ but-  _ can we do this somewhere else?  _ Those deadheads are looking at us  _ awfully funny  _ right about now-“

Akaashi’s discomfort whittles over as the two turn to see Akaashi with his own assault rifle locked onto a large number of biters advancing slowly from the corners. Bokuto jumps, obviously not processing this as a possibility; “oh! Yeah, okay, let’s get to the rooftops-“

“Wait a second,” Hinata obliges, _ “my friends are still in there…!!” _

But with the rising snarling of biters, the two other men look at him gingerly. “Not sure what you want  _ us  _ to do about that, buddy-“

And that’s when the first biters few take off  _ running- _ Hinata knows that no matter  _ how much  _ he doused his scent, the likelihood of him lasting in a stampeding horde without getting accidentally bitten or trampled was next to none. Shit, shit-  _ ‘Natsu, Kageyama- you’d better not be anywhere nearby.’ _

Akaashi yanks him away from the approaching horde, screaming “run,  _ run!!!” _

And almost immediately the screaming of biters becomes almost deafening and fear kicks into Hinata as he takes off with the new men, just crossing his fingers that his sister and Kageyama hadn’t been fucked over just because he’d done something really fucking  _ stupid-  _

‘ _ “You know, doing stupid things can turn out being a good thing sometimes.” _ ’

Fucking  _ idiot _ .

They round a corner and Bokuto swings open a door with Hinata on his heels; the ginger can see how quickly the biters are approaching and Hinata snatches the door for the man. “Get inside! They won’t attack me!!”

“But you just  _ got _ attacked!”

Suddenly, Akaashi hits the wall, hissing  _ “fuck”  _ as biters immediately swarmed him, and the two gasp. These guys weren’t as limber as Hinata was; they were wearing heavier clothing and fucking guns and shit, maybe not used to running as much with all their stuff; the ginger didn’t blame any of them for not being able to keep speed. “ _ Damn it _ .” Hinata whips out the metal pole from his bag and then drops his load onto the ground, “someone lay down covering fire! I’ve got the biters on Akaa… uh,  _ your friend!!” _

When Bokuto gives a trusting nod and a  _ “hurry!”  _ Hinata doesn’t hesitate to take off, making sure that he was a good distance from the walls and not hugging it, holding the bar in his left hand. He can see how much Akaashi was struggling to keep them off and it puts Hinata on the stake, knowing that if he got bit, it would be  _ his _ fault. ‘ _ Come on, come on!!’ _

_ There, right here. _ Hinata launches himself up onto the walls and within one quick, two step motion, leaps off of it and bowls into the side of the furthest one’s head with the flats of his cleats, stomping its face into the pavement and knocking the rest over like a row of dominos. Akaashi immediately proceeds to unload on them with his assault rifle and Hinata ducks out of the way with his hands on his head as Bokuto begins laying them down too; Akaashi seems bewildered. “ _ Christ _ , I didn’t know you were fucking spiderman-“

“There's a lot you don’t know about me- now  _ hurry!” _

Hinata turns on his heels and begins running as Akaashi follows, Hinata mowing down the few biters that got in their way. There’s a break for it Bokuto had cleared out the biters and Hinata abandons watching over Akaashi, trusting that he could hold his own; if he hadn’t been sprinting then,  _ he was now. _ The ginger barrels into the open door, hearing footsteps behind him and after a good few steps in, he hears the metal slam shut with the sound of loud panting and furious biters behind them.

“ _ Fuck _ …”

Yet another shaky getaway that nearly resulted in someone getting killed. Everyday stuff, no?

Hinata puts his arms over his head to let air into his lungs easier, leaning back against a counter; what was this, an apartment complex? Mostly empty, though.  _ Shocker _ . Akaashi wheezes with his hands on his knees, gun collapsed beside him. “ _ Fuckin _ …”

“ _ Fuckin’ deadheads _ …”

Bokuto pants along with him. “Hate em.”

Hinata looks around and sees Akaashi staring at him, still looking a bit cross. The ginger lolls his head back to avoid his gaze. “Thanks _ , um… thanks Hinata.” _

Hinata just gives a lazy grin. “You save my ass, I save yours.”

“You’d better hope no one else dies from that,” Akaashi comments to Bokuto, motioning to his guns and Hinata guesses he’s talking about the open fire on such a large horde. “You know it’s like- universal law not to gun anything down out here because of  _ that.” _

The biters viciously pound at the glass and Hinata squints as he takes a step back. What, so now  _ a thousand of them  _ conveniently couldn’t break a glass door but just a  _ handful of them  _ could rip down a door in an unblemished hotel?  _ ‘Reeks of plot inconsistency, if you ask me _ .’

  
  


Bokuto sets his weapon against the walls of the building, not too far from where he rested though; _ “what's with all the blood, Hinata?”  _ He asks, and as Hinata opens his mouth to answer, Bokuto shocks him: “you run into that Tsukki guy?”

_ “Tsukishima,”  _ Akaashi corrects, and Hinata just blinks, baffled by the idea that these men knew of the same people Hinata did. “Y-yeah- how did you… you  _ know him?” _

“There’s not many we don’t know,” Bokuto replies flightily, “that’s why we got all panicked when we met up with  _ you.” _

“Well, in any case- yeah- he showed us how all that scent masking shit worked… though, I would’ve figured it would’ve lasted way longer than it did, which- makes me really worried for my friends- _ Kageyama and my little sister.” _

“Little sister, huh? How come  _ you  _ turned up alone??” Akaashi asks, stalking towards him and Hinata immediately feels threatened. Don’t get me wrong, Bokuto was big and scary, but after being held against a radiator with a knife,  _ this guy  _ scared him shitless; he seemed more hostile and analytical than the others,  _ a little bit like his very own partner. _ “I didn’t mean to...  _ got distracted.  _ I’m looking for my friend that got separated from me a while ago. You haven’t seen a guy around my height with bleached blonde hair, have you? Really cool feather tattoo??”

Akaashi snorts. “That almost sounds like a client I had forever ago. But no, afraid we haven’t.”

Hinata stares, noting all the tattoos littered across the man’s arms and Hinata comes to the conclusion that Akaashi must’ve been a tattoo artist before the apocalypse- that was so  _ fucking cool. _ He wondered if he had his ears or nose pierced, too;  _ nipples?  _ Was he stereotyping that all tattoo artists had piercings?? Oh my god, had these two been involved with the Yakuza?

_ “We should be headed back,” _ Bokuto notes, “there’s a stairwell upwards, gotta lead to a roof or a window or something.”

Hinata frowns, _ back? _ “But- my- Natsu, and-“

Akaashi is quick to interrupt him. “Listen, kid- they’re probably _ fine.” _ Hinata’s head reels at the usage of  _ kid. _ “My guess is that you were moving too erratically and it riled them up is all- trust me, you  _ reek _ right now. We need to get out of this pothole, though, before we have the entirety of the horde after us and we’re still closeted here.” He looks to Bokuto with his tone getting a bit more serious, “nor do we need the entirety of the center figuring out who sent the horde into a frenzy- there’ll be a bounty for sure if that happens.”

_ ‘The entirety of the center…? Man, a whole new interaction with these guys and I still have no fucking clue what they’re talking about.’ _

“Right,” says Bokuto, “lets move out. You’re coming with us, Hinata- at least until the rest of your group reappears. There’s probably going to be some unfriendly company in wake if we stay here.”

_ ‘What more can I do?’ _ Oh, he was gonna damned to his bedroom for  _ weeks  _ back at base. “Alright. But after I recollect, I’m headed off to where I was going again. That’s my best shot at meeting up with them again.”  _ This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. _

“Sounds fair to me,” Akaashi replies with mild disinterest, and while the guy turns away Bokuto places a hand on Hinata’s sticky and soured shoulder; “Kageyama’s a big guy, he can hold his own. And, hell, if he can handle you, surely he can handle your sister. They’re okay right now, Hinata-san.”

It doesn’t reassure Hinata in the slightest, but he can't say Bokuto-san is entirely wrong.

  
  
  
  


_ “I’m gonna kill him,” _ Kageyama says over the pounding fists of lurkers behind his back, and Natsu glares from where she pushes a bookshelf over, effort shown in the way her arms strained.  _ “You’re _ gonna kill him??!”

Yeah, this didn’t look good. Kageyama leaps out of the way as the shelf takes his place against the door, leaving him no time for a breather as they begin piling up the whole damn office in front of the opening; “I’m gonna fucking kill him-“

He can’t believe Hinata had just upped and ran away like that, and yet-  _ yes he fucking could, _ it was all Hinata  _ ever  _ did. Didn’t even give a forearning before he sent the entirety of the swarm into a frenzy. “Damn it- this isn’t gonna hold forever!” Natsu cries, hearing the desperate banging of the rampaging horde outside- Kageyama points a finger to the end of the building as light begins to pour through cracks the lurkers made. “Stairwell,  _ go!” _

The two bolt for it, unsure of what they were about to face but simultaneously certain it couldn’t be worse than the seconds to come after the lurkers came flying through in search of them. They bust through the metal doors and slam them shut without a breath drawn between them before they’re headed up the flight of stairs, the shrieking of lurkers still evident behind the towers;  _ “you still got the bag??!”  _ Natsu asks over the panting of her breath.

Unwilling to pause and look, Kageyama replies:  _ “sure fucking hope so!” _

Nearly eating shit on the remains of a lurker that slickened the traction beneath their feet, Kageyama and Natsu get to the top platform and pause with a slam against the door, unenthusiastic about the idea of having to face a handful or so of them while so fatigued. He can only feel worse for the poor girl next to him who wasn’t  _ nearly _ as equipped as Kageyama for situations like these having grown softer at base, leaning over and dry heaving and Kageyama offers his water to which she drains greedily. Kageyama doesn’t even stop her, he’s too exhausted. He peeks out the tiny window through weary, blurred eyes: he doesn’t see anything, but…

“I don’t like being out there, not after those gunshots.”

Natsu looks up at him with water spilling from the corners of her mouth. “Well, what the hell should we do, then?  _ Go back and down there,  _ throw the biters a damn  _ buffet??” _

She’s stressed. “You really  _ are _ your brother’s sister, aren’t you?”

Natsu rolls her eyes. “ _ Don’t bring me into that light now; _ I’m pissed at him.”

“You think I’m  _ not??  _ You two could be in this situation  _ without me  _ right now, don’t act like you’re innocent either-“

“What, you wanna play the blame game?? Maybe if you would’ve done or at least said you fucking  _ tried _ weeks earlier, we wouldn’t be here in the first place!!”

Hands rising into the air submissively, Kageyama returns to the subject:  _ “look,  _ all I’m saying is we need to actually keep things low, okay??  _ And not your brother’s version of low,  _ we actually need to be smart about this _. _ You have any idea where you’re headed?”

“Why me?” Natsu scoffs, “ _ you’re _ the one with the map,  _ you _ get us home.”

“I’m not talking about  _ home _ ,” responds Kageyama, and Natsu just blinks. “You...”

“I mean I think it’s been made plenty obvious that people have survived out here even with its conditions,” Kageyama breathes, “and, I mean shit-  _ Hinata seemed pretty confident in where he was going _ . If he’s headed anywhere,  _ it’s there, _ and if I learned anything from his shitty rooftop talk it’s that there are only so many paths you can take that’ll lead you to the same place…”

But, to Kageyama’s surprise, Natsu just digs her hands into her hair and leans against the wall. “That’s  _ a lot of fucking running _ . I’m not the same-  _ whatever the fuck you two are.  _ Machines??”

So maybe Natsu wasn’t  _ exactly  _ the same breed as Hinata; close, but- not so bullheaded or determined.  _ “It’s your call. _ I’m not gonna act like I’m ecstatic about being here any longer, but we need to find your dumbass brother either way.”

_ “Whatever- _ lets just- see what we’re dealing with outside first, I guess.”

Light blinds them at first, the sun searing fierce into the tops of the buildings and forcing their eyes to adjust fast. Kageyama is quick to shelter behind a radiator with Natsu on his trail, pinning their backs to the protective sheet of metal where at least  _ one _ of their four sides were protected. However, he’s not so sure that other groups would be all that concerned about the shapes that move on the rooftops when…

_ “Christ,” _ Natsu mutters, plugging her ears over the sound of the outraged horde, “motherfucker really did all he could to get this horde riled up, didn’t he...?”

Kageyama leans to get a better look at the swarm below, seeing them circle at his feet, “it was those guns, not him… though, I’m sure he sure started it. It wouldn’t be so widespread without the shootings, though.”

“Nah, I bet he had something  _ to do  _ with those shootings, though. If he ain’t dead on the ground, he’s got someone new wrapped around his little finger.” Natsu grimaces at her own words,  _ “charismatic like that.  _ Though, I’m sure you’ve already experienced his whole  _ shiteating sucker smirk  _ what with the way it never leaves his face- he’s practically a living breathing emoji, yknow, but the kinds you only send when you’re horny.”

Kageyama blinks, taken aback just a little by her wording, but- “yeah, you’re his sister, alright.”

Smiling a little, Natsu turns to him. “You talk like you know the guy already. He give you hell the night before or something?”

“Define  _ “give you hell,” _ because I could list off about seven different reasons why depending on your specifics.”

Natsu just snorts. “Hate to say it, but with him, getting used to it is aaall you can do. The more you start to expect it, the less irritable he becomes… well, until it comes down to shit like this, where he somehow manages to pull a million lurkers into a frenzy.”

Kageyama scoffs over the deafening roar behind his ears, “that’s about the only credit i can give the guy-  _ he knows how to handle himself in a pinch.” _

“I think it’s funny that you find the time to admire the guy even after this is the situation he’s put us in,” replies Natsu, and Kageyama frowns at her a little over this, “you like him, don’t you?”

The natural frown that plagued Kageyama’s resting face intensifies beneath the stare Natsu gives him. “I don’t know why everyone keeps reading into the fact that I get along with the guy or why they’re so mystified that we share a similar taste in common sense.”

_ “Bullshit.” _

Kageyama’s eyes almost fly out of his head at the girl’s challenging tone. “You damn near gutted Ennoshita over Hinata last night. Don’t know what all it was about, but I know it was over  _ him.” _

If it hadn’t had been for the lurkers all billowing at their feet, silence would’ve ensued. Kageyama fumbles over his words, wanting to be defensive but he couldn’t- “fuck, what do you  _ want _ me to say?? I don’t hate the guy, but I’m far from liking him.”

“Yeah, say that the next time you risk his life for him, why don’t you. Anyways, did you save the shards?”

Grateful that the conversation switched on it’s own, Kageyama pulls his bag off his shoulders and kneels, beginning to dig around, finding things misplaced from their prior scramble but easily coming to snag the tiny little ziploc bag full of bombshells in his bag, cautious of touching it.  _ ‘Safe and sound.’ _

But as Kageyama looks up awaiting approval from Natsu, he finds another figure suddenly looming over the girl, elbows hugging their mouth as a long bat swung behind their shoulders. Kageyama’s not the only one who’s noticed, however, Natsu making direct eye contact with a brand new face and managing to scream as she ducked unneatly beneath the swing that crunched the metal where Natsu had stood seconds before.

_ “What the fuck??!!” _

Kageyama proceeds to rush the attacker, knife in hand, with the dropping of the weapon it takes both of their trembling hands and the addition of a back pressed against a radiator to be able to stop his blow; _ “wait, wait! _ I didn’t know you two were human,  _ honest!!” _

The voice that replies is female, brown hair and brown eyes. Her hands slip against the grime that Kageyama’s body was still coated in.  _ “Bull-fucking-shit _ , what kind of lurker is on their knees rummaging through their  _ bags??” _

“I- I just rounded the corner and I couldn’t hear much, it’s so loud, _ I swear!” _ Kageyama’s face darkens and he shoves harder, the tip of his blade inches away from her throat, “all I- oh god- _ ” _

_ “Kageyama, back off,”  _ Natsu calls from behind, “I’ve got the gun pointed at her brains right now.”

Trusting this, Kageyama gives the woman one last deepened glower before his strength saps and he takes an apprehensive step or two backwards, just barely hearing Natsu’s footsteps circle out to his right. The woman lifts her hands into the air as Kageyama starts.  _ “Listen, lady-  _ we’re not from here and we don’t plan on being here long. Whether your intentions with us were sour or not, it’s probably of your best interest to  _ let us go.” _

_ “Oh,  _ that’s not the kind of stuff you should be saying up here.” The woman’s eyes are glazed and bewildered, and Kageyama frowns as she continues: “my, I can already tell you’ve never been up here just by that introductory...”

_ “Huh?” _

“If you run into anyone else that’s hostile,  _ don’t say that. _ Make it like  _ “we’ve been here a million times and there are about twelve more of us scouting the area,”  _ that is if you’re lucky enough to not get a bullet to the head first.”

Her jittery tone and specific responses lacking context made the woman sound batshit  _ insane _ . Next to him, Natsu’s hands fall just slightly.  _ “What’s with the friendly advice?” _

“Because,  _ I’m a trader, _ not a warmonger.” She pats the bag that looked like it sat heavy on her shoulders, then down along her waistline, proving she had no more exposed weaponry; “I promise on my life I didn’t mean to nearly kill you. That’s about one in a million out here.”

And with the cock of an eyebrow, Natsu slowly the revolver’s barrel sink to the ground. _ “... well, thank you for not killing me, I guess.” _

“The name’s Shirofuku Yukie,” she greets, and the two dip their heads faintly with their guards still up. “Kageyama Tobio, Natsu Hinata.”

But Yukie’s eyes don’t seem to ever leave Natsu’s hands. “You’re…  _ sure _ you two haven’t been around here before…?”

Kageyama just scoffs, thought it had been obvious a second ago.  _ “Think I’d remember it if I had.” _

“Then- did you- run into someone  _ earlier, by chance?  _ Um, by the name of  _ Bokuto...?” _

_ ‘Bokuto…?’ _ With an inquiring look, Kageyama catches the woman’s eyes staring quizzically at the revolver in Natsu’s hands- the revolver that had not been his just a day ago. He looks back, dampening his lips.  _ “Real big guy with the black and white hair...?” _

“Yeah. That’s him.”

Next to him, Natsu sounds stunned.  _ “What???” _

“We ran into him yesterday at a loot crate,” Kageyama answers for the both of them, “he gave that gun to me after he stuffed almost the entire damn thing.”

Natsu blinks, seemingly betrayed.  _ “Loot… my brother didn’t tell me about any of this…” _

“I knew I recognized that handgun,” the woman claims, “Bokuto-san- he’s a trader, too, but he’s typically much less lenient on his weapons, which got me curious. Those gunshots that started this swarm, I’m guessing those were his- I’d recognize their shots anywhere… you following him?”

_ “Not intentionally.” _ Kageyama’s eyes widen a little, thinking about how at almost the same Hinata had run off, their lurker scent mask had started fading, the fact that Bokuto would recognize Hinata if he saw him... “why would he be  _ shooting…?” _

“Dunno, there’s a lot of good reasons, really- I just think it’s funny they were on the ground instead of up here, maybe they were rescuing someone. But it’s best if you get out of here now, or else you’ll get blamed for the crime of open fire so close to the center.”

_ “... The center…?” _

“We’ll just say there are a lot of passive trader conducts up here and that one of them is that you’re not supposed to use guns without silencers on them because otherwise  _ this  _ happens. They’ll kill whoever they think did it if someone else gets killed in the process.”

At the same time, Natsu and Kageyama exchange a glance. “Yukie-san… is there any way by chance you could take us to this  _ Bokuto guy…?” _

_ “Could sure try,” _ Yukie says, and with one swift motion drops her bag onto the ground, “that is if you’ll trade me something for those little shards of yours.”

Looking over his shoulder to see the plastic bag on the ground, Kageyama’s eyes widen a little.

  
  
  
  


“So, where  _ is  _ your guy’s base??”

Minutes had passed and only just now did Hinata feel like he had the breath to speak. _ “We don’t have one,” _ Bokuto replies ahead of him, “not a set one, anyways. Run by day, hunker down by night, and play by ear of other territories.”

Hinata isn’t entirely sure what he means by that- in fact, there were _ a lot  _ of things that Hinata didn’t understand that seemed obvious by the way he spoke. 

Atop the roofs, the three travel in some sort of a line- Hinata wedged in between the two foreign men with curiosity overwhelming his security. He’s not too sure where they’re headed, but the other two seem to be fairly confident. “Oh… is it just you and Akaashi-san, then?” Their voices have to raise slightly to be heard, although the biter swarm had calmed a little by now. _ “Not really,” _ replies Bokuto, “we band up with a handful of others sometimes, ones with similar motives. We’re well acquainted but I wouldn’t consider us as a group.”

“Well, we have a base- one you’d be very welcome to stay in or visit from time to time.”

The two bow their heads slightly while still on the move. “Thank you, we’ll take the hospitality into consideration, but-  _ groups aren’t really our thing.  _ We- used to have one and we left on our own accord.”

_ ‘Choosing not to have a base…?’ _

Now, Hinata wasn’t about to judge whatever kept people alive in this apocalypse, but even Bokuto’s tone of voice was setting off alarms for Hinata.  _ “Why?? _ Er- if I may ask-“

_ “It was a big group,” _ replies Bokuto, “had three leaders. Two of those three didn’t get along, one walked out, and to say the least- Akaashi and I got caught in the middle. So, we just...  _ left without announcement;  _ too many disputes, we knew we were far better off on our own and this lifestyle has proved itself that.”

The lack of detail made Bokuto’s words reek of secrecy but Hinata knew it wasn’t his place, respectfully moving on when Bokuto’s sentence didn’t pick up from where it left off;  _ “makes sense.” _

“Just in general, the two of us don’t plan on staying here long,” Akaashi comments from behind him, “we’re looking for a way out of here, out of Tokyo.”

And to this, Hinata frowns, scoffing a little. “Why make it sound like you don’t know your way out...?”

The way the two pause to look at one another doesn’t click with Hinata, their eyes so full of bewilderment. “Hinata,” begins Akaashi with a face contorted in confusion, “how much do you actually  _ know  _ about… about the apocalypse??”

_ ‘This is a trap.’ _

“Uh, like- what- what do you mean, are we talking  _ biters??  _ Because, like- Tsukishima was talking about blood to blood contact or whatever- is that what we’re talking about...???”

The looks on the two’s faces made it evident that he most definitely did  _ not _ know what they were talking about. “You’re saying there’s _ more...?” _

“You’ve never been to the city’s edges after all these months?”

He’s a little offended by this gesture. “Well,  _ that’s- _ not exactly a friendly stroll from our base, and...  _ y’know,“  _ Hinata gestures to the entirety of his broken self and they seem to catch on.

“Then consider yourself lucky, and don’t make any plans to go there soon. The edges of Tokyo are a barren wasteland at this point, all burnt down and blown to bits” says Akaashi, “it looks like a no man’s land. Littered with mines and controlled explosives, it’s…  _ monitored, _ we think.  _ Anyone that tries to get out gets blown the fuck up.” _

And at first, it makes Hinata blink, thinking of the jets and the bombings.  _ ‘First off, who the hell captures a city by forcing it into an apocalyptic state, and second of all, if you’re going to keep people caged in like this, why choose the biggest city in the world...?’  _ “Yeah, shit, I- we didn’t know any of that, glad we never found it in our interest to try…”

It dawns on Hinata slowly as Akaashi continues on.  _ “Those bombs were never foreign country, Hinata-san, those jets had been Japanese operated.  _ I don’t know what kind of test drive we’re running, but I think those left alive here are all a bunch of twisted, government lab rats.  _ Look around you;  _ supplies falling from helicopters that pay no interest otherwise, illegal substances and weaponry…  _ foreign country or not, _ whoever’s leaving those crates has no interest in actually rescuing us or letting us out, just aiding in our survival.”

There’s a lot to argue with that statement, but what was the point either way? They were all stuck here in the same shit…  _ “I believe you, _ I just… why would the government bomb its own people?”

_ “More like how,” _ the black haired man snorts, “four months ago Japan wasn’t allowed to have an offensive militia and now they’re dropping superweapons on their own people… it’s just _ insane;  _ how long were they developing this, what the fuck even  _ is it-  _ how many other countries are in on this shit considering no one’s come to our rescue, what level of government clearance did you have to have in order to know about this shit…”

_ “Best not to think too hard about it,”  _ Bokuto reminds ahead of them, seeming to have detect the waves of frustration coming off of his partner and a hand comes to place on Hinata’s shoulder as Akaashi urges him along. “Needless to say there won’t be any escaping Tokyo any time soon, and that these choppers dropping shit for us are  _ not our allies _ so don’t ever interpret them that way.”

Surreal, this situation was- let alone to be living in it. Hinata wants to be more shocked than he is, but he didn’t have a heartbeat’s worth of doubt. _ “I believe you…” _

Wasn’t sure he’d be telling Yacchan about  _ this _ one.

“So, uh, you and Bokuto…”

Hinata drags himself back to Akaashi’s side where the other man could focus without his blabbering. “The way you guys talk- y _ ou two have history together, right?” _

Akaashi replies snorting, rubbing at an arm full of tattoos; “yeah, you could say that.”

“Well, not just any pair walks around with their arms _ littered like that,” _ says Hinata, which in turn he gets a quizzical look from Akaashi. _ “We weren’t apart of the Yakuza or anything gang related, if that’s what you want to ask. _ I was a tattoo artist before this shit, it’s where it comes from.”

_ ‘Oh, thank god-’  _ “Well, I think they’re  _ badass,”  _ replies Hinata, noting how most of them weren’t super intricate or over the top, ones that seemed to have no meaning yet knowing from his own experience must’ve meant everything to the world to have such a display on his arms. He liked these two’s styles.

“Thank you, simple compliments are rare these days. Koutarou and I… well, I’ll just say he came into my life as a naked canvas and it’s my fault he’s got so many.” The guy chuckles, seeming to particularly favor a tattoo on his wrist, a black half of an incomplete yin-yang. Must be half of a set, made Hinata go to grab at the long scar down along his left arm. “Made him match too many with me- it was so hard to not be tempted with that build he’s got…”

Hinata stares quizzically at the way he talks about Bokuto- first name biases, matching tattoos, the obscure lusting over his muscles…

Hinata’s eyelids fall over his eyes. “Favorite position?”

“Doggy.”

Hinata grins. “Nice.”

“So, what of you and your partner...?”

_ “Kageyama...? _ Oh, we’re not anything special- just a pair of assholes that ended up in the same space as one another during the apocalypse, we don’t get along too well.”

Shock is imminent on Akaashi’s face and he frowns in question.  _ “Really? _ I mean, you two don’t seem like you ever have the same ideas, but I would’ve figured with the only times having seen you two being with one another that you got along alright.”

What was with everyone just automatically expecting the two of them to get along? “Yeah, funny story- I ran away from base both those times. I’m not supposed to be out here at  _ all.” _

_ “One day after the other…?” _

“Yup.”

“You didn’t even bother waiting a day or two to throw them off??”

“Nope.”

“What for?”

_ “My friend, his name’s Kenma…  _ we got separated weeks ago and last I knew he was up around here where all these lurkers are. Haven’t seen him, have you? Bleached blonde hair, feather tattoo on the left arm…?”

“Afraid not,” replies Akaashi, and the frown Hinata returns is inevitable. “Well, keep an eye out if you would. The guy…  _ means a lot to me.” _

“We will-“

_ “Hey!” _

Hinata is the only one to flinch as a foreign voice calls out to them, gun in hand but facing down as Bokuto seems to motion with his hand to the stranger. He thinks it looks strange for just a motion, though-  _ ‘a signal.’ _ Bokuto, he knows these guys, somehow.  _ ‘But Bokuto and Akaashi-san don’t have a base…’ _

And yet, this area seemed to be littered with spraypaint and signs of life-  _ an outpost,  _ is what Hinata would guess. Bokuto dips his head in greeting and Akaashi does the same, Hinata rudely not doing a thing as they call out to him,  _ “Futakuchi-san.” _

“That a deadhead with you?”

Hinata can tell by the guy’s tone that he was most definitely mocking him and without hesitance he shoots back, “you want me to bite you and have you figure out the hard way??”

Immediately Bokuto and Akaashi look to him with a shocked, casting glance but the remote man a building or two away just starts cackling. _ “He’s new, isn’t he?” _

_ “Sorry about that, _ ” Akaashi says, grabbing at the back of Hinata’s head and urgently forcing him to bow with him, “he’s a straggler we picked up on the streets. Pay no mind to him, he’s an escort.”

_ “Looks like one,”  _ remarks Futakuchi, a beckoning hand being signaled towards them and a couple more men appear to accompany the guy, heavy bags on their backs as he approaches the three of them. He gets a swatting from Bokuto, who whispers discreetly for him to “ _ cut that shit out”  _ as he swings his bag off his shoulders. “Got what we needed?”

“Of course,” Bokuto replies, lugging it at them and beside him Akaashi does the same. The men next to him retrieve them- but Hinata can tell by the tension in the air that something was amiss. Futakuchi’s hands still remain out at Bokuto and Akaashi. “... The guns, too.”

Bokuto’s face pulls into a surprised grimace. “That was never apart of the deal-“

“We’ll give you your stuff if you give us those damn guns,” says Futakuchi, “we’re low on everything right now, and don’t you dare forget who’s covering for your ass.”

Bokuto’s snarl is met quickly with handguns being pointed at the two and Hinata understands;  _ it's a rip off.  _ Whatever these guys did or had done, this Futakuchi guy was ripping them off...

A resentful look on his face, Bokuto pulls the gun off over his head and lobs it carelessly at the guy, Akaashi doing the same.

_ “Him too.” _

Realizing Futakuchi was referring to him, Hinata’s eyes widen as those guns suddenly turn to him with a beckoning glare. “Don’t worry, I don’t want you long.”

Dazed with sudden fear, Hinata takes a step or two forward before hands place on his shoulder and a knee drills into his gut, hard enough to make him gag and drop to his knees in a daze. He feels Futakuchi’s body looming over him, the men backing him up laughing; “I don’t know where the fuck you came from or who the fuck you are, but just know had you been rescued by any other pair of traders I’d have killed you by now.  _ Sure hope you put some weight on your bones before you ever decide to set foot in the center.” _

_ Hinata doesn’t like being talked down on,  _ especially in such a vulnerable state. He grits his teeth, an embarrassed and enraged snarl hidden by his ratted orange hair as he heaves to catch the breath that he’d lost. He hears bags get lobbed off to the side- _ Bokuto and Akaashi’s unfair pay. _ “Thank you, Bokuto-san, Akaashi-san- we’ll be sure to put this to fair use.”

Hinata slowly attempts at rising back to his feet, wiping at the saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth and in that time Futakuchi strikes at him again, a swipe to the head that misses as Hinata regains himself- he’s  _ pissed _ . But, Hinata thinks about Futakuchi’s words, about the way they’d addressed Bokuto and Akaashi and realized that fighting back could potentially jeopardize their relations with these people as well. The opposing man gives Hinata a long, haughty glare before eventually turning his back to them and shifting away, Bokuto and Akaashi hanging back until the other men decide to follow in his lead. “Check in again sometime soon…  _ preferably without the rude, uninvited company, next time.” _

Hinata rubs at the sore spot on his stomach before stumbling backwards, a pain all too familiar to him arising again. _ ‘Oh no- god damn it.’ _ He feels Akaashi come to stabilize him but he doesn't think he’s realized the pain Hinata was in yet, growling, “what the  _ hell  _ were you doing???”

“He wouldn’t know any better, Keiji, he’s not from here.”

At once, Hinata collapses again, his side searing with a familiarly growing dull pain-  _ his stupid fucking ribs. _ They hadn't ruptured, Hinata was sure of it, but this kind of pain wasn’t about to just dull without the effects of medication. _ “Woah- Hinata??” _

“I’m good, just the ribs- give me a second…”

_ ‘Damn it,’  _ Hinata thinks,  _ ‘god fucking damn it.’ _

He’s sure glad Yachi had smuggled shit for him, now, thank god for her. Canteen in hand and pain killers in the other, all Hinata would have to do is wait another handful of minutes before he was ready to up and go again. Thanks to her, he’d at least be able to keep going out here.

His head looks to the sun, squinting.  _ Daybreak _ . His body felt like he’d been running for weeks, but for Kenma, this was all worth it… the idea of getting him back made Hinata not feel a thing.

“Well, at least they actually gave us what they promised this time…”

Gaze redirecting, Hinata sees Bokuto rummaging through the bags that had been swapped out for his own. “Don’t know if that pays off losing our fucking guns, though.”

_ “Those assholes ripped you off,”  _ says Hinata, still tenderly rubbing at his sides, “why didn’t you just unload on them or something?”

Bokuto’s gaze falls a little. “Unfortunately, we’re used to it. Akaashi and I are traders, of sorts- do the dirty tasks for other groups, bring their shit back here to these little outposts.”

“But you just let them take what they want,” argues Hinata, and he sees the shadows on Bokuto’s face deepen,  _ “why??” _

“To say the least, Futakuchi is covering Akaashi and I’s tracks right now.”

_ “Covering??  _ What the hell are you talking about??? And why does that justify them scamming you-”

“That wouldn’t be any of your concern, Hinata,” snaps Bokuto, that friendly tone of his gone in an instant, “allies or not, the last thing we need is a random stranger having a background check on us.”

But before Hinata can retort, a voice calls from a distance; _ “Keiji, Koutarou!!” _

Hinata is surprised when the unfamiliar vocals are paired with familiar faces. Kageyama and Natsu stand overhead, an unknown female waving and giving the same hand motion that Bokuto had done earlier, “figured you two would be here!” she calls.

_ “Yukie-san, you just missed it,”  _ Bokuto greets with a smile on his face, but that smile is quick to be wiped as Kageyama bounds down to their level, the blood he was soaked in illuminating those chilling blue eyes that always seemed to intensify his glare. Hinata rises to his feet in anticipation, stepping out in front of the two and putting himself between them and Kageyama. He expects Kageyama to start yelling, punch him, to start doing  _ something-  _ but it gets awkward when all he does is stare at Hinata from a couple of feet away. The redhead cocks a brow.

Bowing, Kageyama looks between Bokuto and Akaashi. “Sorry for the trouble I’m sure he gave you two.”

Hinata frowns, “what- you think you’re my fucking keeper?”

Wrong thing to say.  _ “Don’t push your luck, asshole,”  _ Kageyama retorts, “I don’t have the energy to be angry at you right now, but just know you almost got your sister and I  _ killed.” _

Hinata looks between Kageyama and then at Natsu, whose head fell down to the ground, unwilling to meet his eyes and his head falls in shame.  _ “I’m... sorry.” _

_ “Sorry??”  _ Echoes Kageyama, that hotheaded temper of his quick to rise, “of all the  _ irresponsible-” _

_ “Hey,” _ interrupts Bokuto, and Hinata can tell by the glare Kageyama gives in return that was about the last thing Kageyama wanted to hear. “Hinata saved Akaashi’s life in that mess, too. It wasn’t a one-sided rescue.”

Kageyama isn’t one to be persuaded by the words of others.  _ “Yeah, _ and almost got two people from his own group killed in the process.”

_ “I thought you two would follow!! _ I didn’t-  _ I don’t know _ , I know it was stupid I just haven’t been out here in weeks and this- this is my first shot at finding Kenma, and… and…”

Hinata can’t suppress the scowl that crosses his face as pain shoots from his weary ribs and Kageyama’s eyes widen. Akaashi butts in, “if it makes you feel any better, he already got the shit kicked out of him by one of the local groups for the way he was talking.”

“You’re  _ hurt?” _

“Not anything beyond what painkillers can’t fix,” replies Hinata, and Kageyama just purses his lips with a harsh roll of the eyes. _ “For fucks sake…” _

Hinata’s fist clenches; this wasn’t how this was supposed to go at all. As much as he’d do to get Kenma back, that last people’s lives he wanted to waste over his own decisions were Natsu’s or Kageyama’s…

“Let’s just go home,” says Hinata.

He expected there to at least be a pause, but Kageyama shuts him down fast.  _ “Hell no.” _

Blinking away his shock, Hinata stumbles over his response:  _ “n-no?? _ Kageyama, I already almost got you two killed and made the terrain infinitely more dangerous… I’m not letting someone  _ die  _ because of this.”

Kageyama’s voice lowers,  _ “we traded those bomb shards in order to find you, damn it.  _ We leave now and we leave with  _ nothing.” _

“Well, what the hell am  _ I  _ supposed to do?? I don’t- I can’t _ run  _ right now, and I don’t wanna-”

_ “We’ll _ go,” replies Kageyama, pointing back at Natsu, then looking back to Akaashi, “look, I know we’re not exactly friends here so no oblige, but if you'll ensure he won’t chase after us for another few minutes...”

“Of course,” says Akaashi, dipping his head, and Hinata’s eyes widen. “No-  _ no, Kageyama _ , I’m  _ not  _ letting you two go alone up there.”

“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” Kageyama’s eyes just narrow as he beckons Natsu to his side,  _ “lets go.” _

_ “Kageyama, don’t!!” _

The raven haired man takes off in a jog before kicking it into a sprint behind him, Natsu staring long and hard at the ground but she doesn’t change her mind. Wordlessly, she takes off after him, leaving Hinata hurt, wracked with betrayal-

Maybe that’s how they’d felt when he abandoned their side. Idiot.

Akaashi grabs at his arm as if he planned on going anywhere with a body paralyzed in shock, and the new girl that had been with them finally begins approaching. “You’re... really gonna let the bunch of newbies just _ go?” _ Asks Yukie, a frown on her face and Bokuto just gives her a glance. “I don’t like the direction they’re headed, too many choppers up in that hellhole.”

_ “And you didn’t even warn them of that??!”  _ Exclaims Hinata, but Bokuto just holds his hand out, letting his bag drop to the ground. “Yukie-chan, if you’re headed back to the center, would you mind holding onto our stuff for a couple of hours...?”

The lady grins, seemingly one step ahead of him. “Of course.”

“Then we’ll give it about ten, fifteen minutes- however long it takes those ribs of yours to quit hurting. Then we’ll let  _ you  _ take the lead.”

_ ‘Take the lead…?’ _ Were these three  _ really  _ encouraging Hinata and his antics…?

Glancing between them, a tiny grin cracks across Hinata’s face.

  
  
  
  


_ Second Month, North of Base // x Natsu. _

_I don’t know exactly where we are, but it’s almost directly north of our base, well out of the red markings outlining our safe area. Like-_ _miles_ _out of our safe area range. Skytree has collapsed from bombings, & this place is absolutely __crawling_ _INFESTED with LURKERS_ _. The only way in is through_ _scent-masking or rooftops_ _._ Littered with hostile groups.

**_GATHERINGS_ ** _ : So far I have not seen or taken anything of interest. Apart from the local convenience stores, there’s nothing, and most of which have been looted already. _

**_ANALYSIS_ ** _ : Extremely dangerous, avoid at all costs.  _ _ DO NOT GO HERE _ _.  _ _ EVER _ _. _

It was strange going from alone to with a group of two and changing your running style all in the span of just two days.

One after another, with Natsu at point and Kageyama right on her heels, they went rooftop to rooftop, with Kageyama clearly being the odd one out here on this whole parkour-esque stuff. His fucking ankles hurt more than his feet, which, was a rare feeling. Kageyama wondered how Hinata was even  _ alive _ having ran so hard today;  _ surely _ he was sore, right? It’d be embarrassing if he wasn’t, but he also wasn’t so sure Hinata didn’t run off gasoline.

The raven-haired man stops the girl with a hand on the shoulder; “you sure you know where you’re going?”

Natsu nods; “ _ positive _ .” Kageyama can’t do anything but trust that; this kid wasn’t about to stop for the likes of anyone, anyways. 

Natsu pauses again after another few rooftops, breathing heavily, and Kageyama can tell that nostalgia has kicked into her hard; the girl barely even has to watch where she’s going at this point.  _ ‘They really  _ have _ been here before.’ _

_ “It’s... different up here,”  _ comments Natsu, and Kageyama frowns inquisitively. “How so?”

The girl seems to squint uneasily,  _ “less buildings here. _ More bomb craters, more smoke, air quality wasn’t  _ this  _ shit.” She shakes her head; “I’m not sure what all we’ve missed out on in two months, but be careful. With Tokyo, it could be anything.”

And that it could. 

“That building, dead ahead, Kageyama-san. On the other side, that’s the place where the three of us stayed. There will be a window-  _ god _ , I know the ins and outs of that building like the fucking back of my hand, just- _ trust me. _ Wish my brother weren’t an asshole with cracked ribs, he’d know it even better than me.”

Helping one another when the climbs got risky, the pair finally make their way through the building Natsu had been talking about, nearly losing sight of the girl along the way as he darted from corner to corner; he couldn’t forget that, even if she _was_ the more rational of the two Hinatas, that Natsu had still been begging Kageyama to look for Kenma in that first week, too. _‘In over her head. Juuust like her brother.’_

Kageyama turns the corner, breathless as Natsu, who was far more energized than Kageyama with her aggressive passion for Kenma, suddenly positioned herself and flung out a window. “ _ Fucking hell. _ ”

Looking down from where Natsu stood, Kageyama heaves. “Don’t run away like that you fucking…”

The raven-haired man suddenly realizes why Natsu looked so stiff and his mouth falls open with the sharp intake of air.

_ “Uhh, Kageyama… don’t come down here… _ ”

Kageyama feels his nerves fray as the roof shudders yet again beneath Natsu’s feet, the cracks that slitted along it threatening to break. “ _ Kageyama what do I do-“ _

‘ _ Fuck. Fucking fuck. It’s going to collapse in on her, there’s no way she can get out of this.’ _

Her teeth exposed in a frozen grimace, Natsu’s strength was  _ very clearly  _ draining from her legs by the way that they trembled uncontrollably beneath her. Kageyama knew that Natsu would fucking  _ faint _ if she thought about this too hard or too much, and could tell that the girl knew this too by the way he was taking in deliberately deep breaths of air, fighting to keep her senses that were dulling by the second aware.

“Just-  _ stay calm, stay conscious _ . It’s going to collapse in on you but when it does, I’ll be down there to save you, okay? Just hang on, Natsu,  _ you’re gonna be alright _ .”

Natsu whimpers, his legs trembling violently as the roof shifted yet again, more aggressively this time, and Kageyama can see the absolute horror that drenched over the brown in her irises, turning them a dark gold in fear, wilting her pupils. He can’t hear her at this point, but her lips motion-

“ _ Fuck! _ ”

-Right before the shingles completely split beneath her weight and Natsu goes collapsing down with it, her body disappearing in a matter of seconds with a wail of terror. Kageyama’s entire body flinches and he throws himself out the window on pure instinct, following her path; he’s much heavier than Natsu, so the moment his shoes hit the shingles he’s broken through, engulfed by dust and bits of roof, ‘ _ I can’t see-‘ _

His ankles hit the ground wrong and the next thing he knows he’s on the ground with jarred wrists and sore feet and probably a sprained ankle, god, ‘ _ where is Natsu, where is Natsu-’ _

Oh. Hey, there’s Natsu.

Brown eyes stare directly back at him, looking completely unimpressed and holding up a shingle which had evidently fallen flat on her face from the mark welting up on her cheek. “Nice entry there, Kageyama; my goddamn hero. I get the wind knocked out of me and the first thing is see as I come to my sense is a piece of the fucking roof a split second before it-“

_ ‘Just like her brother.’ _

“ _ I get it asshole, _ sorry for being fucking worried you might end up being eaten by-“

“ _ Biter!! _ ”

“Shit,  _ already??!”  _

Natsu slings the shingle over Kageyama’s back and hears an irritated hiss from a lurker somewhere behind him. Right,  _ go time. _ The raven-haired man rolls off of Natsu and immediately goes for his knives- 

_ His knives weren’t in his belt.  _ “What the-“

Kageyama looks around and spots them in various locations on the floor, caused by a dislodging of their sheath. “ _ Are you fucking kidding-“ _

This lurker was fucking huge, around Kageyama’s height or taller and the melted quality to its face made the man want to scream his lungs out, it was so disturbing. This particular lurker was probably a bomb victim.

Natsu comes flying to his aid, bashing the side of its face in with a fucking shingle and the lurker stumbles back, disoriented. As she regains ground, the girl lobs her pole at it and it makes a dull ringing sound as it cracks against the poor things skull, throwing the thing into the wall, which was basically being tormented at this point. Kageyama, from his position on the ground, yells, “ _ can you just kill the fucking thing already??! _ ”

“I’m sorry I can’t one-hit-kill something twice my size!!”

She shoves Kageyama’s knives along the floor at him, nearly getting him to cut himself as he reaches out to stop one and Kageyama slings it the second the lurker begins to regain itself, hitting the side of its skull where it went limp. “Christ, that fucker was ugly,” comments Natsu, hands on her knees, and finally Kageyama is offered the opportunity to stand. “Y’know, at first I didn’t really believe him, but… I think my brother was right about you.”

“About _ me?” _

“Yeah, and how you’re only a cuck at the base. You don’t act so much like that out here.”

Where did  _ that  _ come from? “I don’t know why you guys repeat it as if it’s supposed to be a compliment.”

“It’s not a compliment, it’s an observation. You really hate being there, don’t you?”

“Listen- I already have to hear it every single time your brother and I are in the same space, so can we not talk about me right now?? Lets just… look around, I guess.”

Natsu’s face falls a little. “Kenma, he’s… probably not in here considering there are lurkers in here, huh?”

“Well, the least we can do now is look anything he left behind. He wouldn’t just- leave without a word, would he??”

_ “No,” _ Natsu replies with confidence, then immediately wrinkles her nose. “God, it reeks in here though… I don’t think Kenma’s been in here for  _ weeks.” _

“Probably not, considering the condition outside.”

The two split off from one another, beginning to search, “anything that looks out of place, tell me about it. Kenma was smart, and I don’t think he would’ve just… told us exactly where he was headed.”

It didn’t look like  _ anyone _ could hole up in here for a decent stretch of time, honestly; it looked like it might collapse at any second, lots of blood and broken things. Had this place always been this tattered down, or was Hinata just that desperate to get away from the bombs on that first day...?

Natsu immediately hits the room at the end of the hall; “we hardly even used the downstairs in fear of a biter break in. This bedroom is…  _ where we holed him up.” _

Kageyama stares, watching the light fade out of her eyes as she walks into that bedroom- Natsu looks fucking  _ heartbroken _ . He’s suddenly infinitely more glad that Hinata isn’t here right now, he would’ve been  _ devastated _ . Kageyama feels his own face fall, he doesn’t get why  _ he’s _ as upset as he is-  _ this wasn’t any of his concern. _ Maybe it was that weeks’ worth of build-up just to be let down in the end...

But then it comes to Kageyama’s realization that he’s not sad about Kenma, he’s sad for  _ Natsu, _ for  _ Hinata _ ; ‘ _ ever since day one, their one motivation was to get out here to Kenma, and now…’ _

Hinata had literally  _ threatened Kageyama  _ over Kenma, gone through heartbreak and struggles and Kageyama very distinctly remembers Hinata screaming his broken lungs out at the ground only because Kageyama had denied him of finding his best friend. Now, they’d come all the way to rescue him just to find him not even here, gone without a trace- what would the guy’s reaction even  _ be  _ to Kenma not being here? Had Kageyama done the wrong thing, not going out to find him...?

“He left his hoodie here,” says Natsu with a frown, “everything else of his is gone but this...”

Kageyama purses his lips. He wants to comfort Natsu but god, what does he fucking say?  _ I’m sorry...?  _ What a piece of shit way to sympathize with someone and hell, an even shittier apology. So, he doesn’t. _ “I’m going to check out another room and let you be,”  _ Kageyama says in the softest way that he can, and Natsu nods her okay.

‘ _ The reason why their best friend is gone- it’s all me.’ _

Through his melancholy, as he shuffles to another door along the hall, Kageyama opens it to a goddamn  _ bloodbath _ on the other side.

Thoughts leave him in a fraction of a second and the man’s eyes widen as terror consumes his reaction time. Pale and contorted, a body laid with a head so mauled Kageyama couldn’t identify entirely what he was looking at, just knew it had been mangled violently with a pool of dried blood spread all across the tile floor and on almost every surface of the bathroom. Kageyama didn’t really know what Kenma looked like, but no way in hell would _anyone_ be able to genuinely identify that body.

The one thing Kageyama  _ did  _ know was that was no  _ lurker body _ . No no, with its soured flesh still sickly pale in decomposition and its blood though dried was thin- whatever had killed this guy, he’d been human in his last seconds of life.

And what other human would it be if not the one that lived here?

‘ _ Oh god, oh my god-‘ _

Careful not to slam the door and get Natsu’s attention, Kageyama shuts the door, hoping that the smells hadn’t wafted out enough for Natsu to suspect anything. Oh god, how the hell was he going to tell Natsu that there was a body… that Kenma... __

_ What the hell would Hinata do? _

He’d go insane;  _ he’d literally go insane.  _ Hinata had proven himself today and countless other times that he’d do just about anything for Kenma.

“I didn’t find much more in the bedroom…”

“Woah, _ Kageyama??” _

Guilt and fear swallows him and he can’t even find it in his right mind to retort. “I-I checked the bathroom out really well, to- like, make sure there wasn’t anything in there for you. I didn’t find anything of interest, there… was nothing.”

Immediately Natsu seems to catch his bluff, anyone could have, really. “Jesus fuck, Kageyama, are you alright? The hell did you see in there?? Y’know, I can handle biter guts, nothing’s really going to phase me at this point-”

“I didn’t find anything, promise. I- checked the cabinets and everything and I just don’t want to waste time. If nothing’s here, nothing’s here.”

There, _good_ _lie_. Sort of an assholish, bitter truth lie, but a better one than his awkward stammering.

Taken aback, the girl’s mouth falls open a little in shock. “Kageyama,  _ what-  _ what happened to if we don’t find anything here it’s pointless?? What the fuck has gotten into you, _ you’re lying, what did you see??!” _

_ “Nothing, damn it!  _ Kenma just  _ obviously  _ isn’t still here and we don’t need to be wasting our breath up in lurker hell!”

He’d tell Natsu if it really came down to the bottom line, but for now- for the sake of Hinata, neither of them needed to know. Not until the memory of Kenma faded, not until the idea that this was all Kageyama’s fault was abolished. He’d wait until there was a more proper timing, where Hinata didn’t have his hopes so high anymore. Kageyama could carry this weight  _ forever _ , but he sure as hell knew that Hinata couldn’t.

“Just trying to keep my own people alive.”

‘ _ All of my people alive. And if that was Kenma’s body in that bathroom, then he’s not one we need to concern over. Hinata doesn’t need to meet that same fate.’ _

_ “Listen here, you prick- _ “

And that’s when the fucking ground decides to rupture and blow up right beneath their very feet, a sound so concussive it drowned everything out but Kageyama knew all too well what this was; ‘ _ bombs. More bombs.’ _

Beneath the shuddering ground, Kageyama sees the entire ceiling collapsing above them, his ears ringing and putting him in a daze. The last thing Kageyama remembers doing before slipping into a short unconsciousness is grabbing Natsu, shielding her with his body on their way down before the raven-haired man gets pelted  _ hard _ with rubble and debris particularly on the back of the head and neck. The faint and distant-sounding cry of his name from the person however far away from him echoes in his fragile mind as he slips between conscious and unconscious as his face meets a foul-tasting carpet.

“ _ Kageyama!!! _ ”

He doesn’t know where the girl went in that catastrophe, but he hears her voice and her urgent tugging at his shoulder blades, “ _ Kageyama! Hey, look at me- you’re  _ okay _ , you’re-“ _

‘ _ Natsu… _ ’ The raven-haired man’s shineless blue eyes roll to the back of his head in a final attempt at a cling for consciousness, and then the man goes completely limp.

“Fuck,  _ Kageyama!!!” _

Jets flyby overhead and excite the biters with all that noise. Like a dinnerbell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wheyyyy 100k down 600k more to go help


End file.
